PAKADOXURIXA. 59 



Tribe VII. PARADOXURINA. 



The hind part of the tarsus bald ai)d callous. The tail cj'lindrical, 

 liairy, very long, of many vertebra, rcvolute. The frenuni with a 

 secretory gland. Head elongate. Pujnl linear, erect. Orbit of skull 

 generally only defined by a slight prominence above. — Omij, P. Z. S. 

 18G4, p. 526. 



This is an exceedingly natural group, well defined by its external 

 characters and general appearance ; at the same time the form of 

 the skull and the teeth of the dift'erent species present so great an 

 amount of variation that, if one studied the skull only, one would 

 be inclined to distribute them among several diiferent tribes of 

 Carnivora — an instance, among many, which shows the necessity of 

 studying the animal as a whole, and of not devoting one's attention 

 more to the osteological than the external characters, or vice versa. 



The gland on the frenum, which is the peculiar character of the 

 genus Paradoxwus, was known to PaUas, who called the species 

 Viverra hermaphrodita on accoimt of it. It was redescribed and 

 figured by Otto, but overlooked by F. Cuvier when he named the 

 genus from a specimen ■v\ith a distorted tail ! 



M. Temminck observes, " Nom generique donne a tout hasard par 

 F. Cuvier, dont il faut se garder de ne rendre I'application strictc- 

 ment applicable a aucune des espcces de ce groupe. 



" La forme et le pouvoir que M. F. Cuvier attribue a cette queue 

 sent bases sur des observations faites sur un sujet soumis a I'etat 

 captif, mais ne sont nuUeraent caracteriscs pas moins specifiquement 

 pour son Pougonne, noirL^ Pai-ado.vitrus ti/pus — la Marte des Palmiers 

 du Buffon." — Mo)K Mamm. ii. p. ^512. 



KM. Temminck had observed many of these animals alive, he 

 would have found that many of them have the habit of curling up 

 the end of the tail as it lies on the ground, and that the ends of the 

 tails of those in confinement are often worn away on the side from 

 this habit (see also Bennett, P. Z. S. 1835, p. 118). 



M. Temminck describes the claws as " not retractile " (Monogr. 

 ii. ]}. 312) ; but Mr. Turner, in his interesting observations on the 

 anatomj' of Parudo.vurus typiis, describing the feline habit of the 

 animal, states that the claws are quite as retractile, and scale off at 

 the ends to keep them sharp, as in the Cat ; he also says the pre- 

 putial gland secretes the odorous exhalation (see Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 1849, p. 24). 



" The Parado.vuri are in habits like the Civets ; their glandular 

 secretion is peculiar, not civet- or musk-like." — Cayitor, Cat. p. 32. 



Tail very long ; caudal vertebmc 36 or 38. 



The species of this group have been very imperfectly understood. 

 In the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1832 I gave a 

 monograph of the species which the specimens and other materials 

 thou available afforded ; and I revised the species in the ' ^fagazine 

 of Natural History ' for 1837. The number of species described 



