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V. On the Characters and Description of a new Genus of Carnivora, called Cynictis. 
By W. Ocisy, Esq., A.M., F.L.S., R. Ast. S., Z.8., &c. 
Communicated March 12, 1833. 
THAT the work of Creation was originally complete and perfect in all its parts, that 
no hiatus existed among natural bodies, or, in other words, that no individual stood 
completely apart from surrounding groups, but that all were connected by a uniform 
gradation of intermediate forms and characters, is a law of natural history which every 
day’s experience tends more strongly to confirm. It is true that, even at the present 
time, many instances might be brought forward in the animal kingdom, of insulated 
groups, apparently united by no connecting links ; and many others, more particularly 
among the larger Hoofed Quadrupeds, in which we have no reason to suppose that any 
such connecting links exist in the actual state of things: but in the one case we have 
daily opportunities of verifying the general law by the discovery and introduction of 
new animals from remote and unexplored regions ; and in the other, the combined re- 
searches of modern zoology and geology have brought to light numerous genera and 
species, long since swept from the surface of the earth by various convulsions of na- 
ture and the consequent changes produced in the physical character of the globe, 
which fill up the chasms that would otherwise appear among the forms and characters 
of existing animals. 
The little animal which forms the subject of the present memoir, affords a striking 
illustration of the truth of these reflections. It forms, in truth, the type of a genus 
which connects the family of the Civets with that of the Dogs, in all their most essential 
characters ; participating with the one in its organs of mastication, and with the other 
in those of locomotion, and consequently ranging, with the Proteles of M. Isidore 
Geoffroy-St.-Hilaire, as a second genus intermediate between these two groups. The 
Proteles, however, partakes, in some degree, of the characters of the Hyenas ; the pre- 
sent animal, as we shall presently demonstrate more at large, is more immediately in- 
terposed between the Dogs and Ichneumons, to the latter of which it bears a pretty close 
resemblance in external form and appearance. The name Cynictis, by which I propose 
to distinguish this genus, is intended to express the double relation which it bears, on 
the one hand to the Dogs, and to the Viverre generally on the other. The legs are 
high, and completely digitigrade ; the toes long, and well separated from one another ; 
the claws long, curved, and moderately sharp, like those of the kindred genera Her- 
pestes and Ryzena; the forms of the head and body are likewise similar; but in the 
number of its toes the Cynictis is intermediate between these two genera, there being 
