THE WHITE-TAILED MUNGOOSE. 265 



Size large ; form rather slender ; tail bushy, and somewhat 

 shorter than the body ; under surface of the tarsus and meta- 

 tarsus thickly haired as far as the base of the first toe ; fur of 

 medium length. General colour blackish-grey, the longer hairs 

 ringed with black and white, except for their terminal third, 

 which is generally black ; under-fur woolly, of a uniform dirty 

 grey colour; feet black; hairs on tail very long, in some examples 

 with white bases and long glistening black tips, so that the 

 whole tail appears black ; in others with long white tips beyond 

 the black, thus rendering the entire tail white. In white-tailed 

 specimens the terminal hairs are usually wholly white. Length 

 of head and body, from 23 to 26 inches ; of tail, 15 to 15^ 

 inches. 



Distribution. — Eastern Abyssinia to Natal, West Africa 

 (Guinea, &c), and Arabia (Muscat). Regarding the remark- 

 able variation in the colour of the tail of this peculiar species, 

 Mr. Thomas writes : " No one seems to have noticed that 

 the black-tailed H. loempo is not even specifically distinct from 

 the typical form, and therefore, of course, possesses all its more 

 important structural characters. H. albicauda and H. loempo 

 cannot even be separated as varieties ; for the only difference 

 between them, namely the colour of the tail, seems to be purely 

 an individual variation. It is true that for the most part 

 specimens from West Africa, representing H. loempo, have 

 black tails, and those from East Africa white tails ; but I have 

 seen too many exceptions to this rule to feel justified in regard- 

 ing the two forms as varietally distinct. Thus there is in the 

 Berlin Museum a specimen from Accra, on the Gold Coast, 

 which has a regular white tail, just as the typical H. albicauda ; 

 and, on the other hand, black-tailed specimens from East 

 Africa are by no means rare. Moreover, in the British Museum 

 we have two specimens from the Bogos country, Abyssinia, 

 received together, the skulls ot which are quite identical, one 



