420 Mr. II. T. Pocock on some of the E.vternal 



L'hinberg also, although he examined the anal sac care- 

 fully, is silent about these glands. But he described a pair 

 of valvular orifices opening one on each side of the midd'e 

 line close to the inferior margin of the pouch below the 

 anus (fig. 4, F, d.). Each orifice leads into a saccular 

 diverticulum which extends beneath the integument in a 

 dorso-lateral direction beneath and on the sides of the anus 

 and also iuferioily, where their position is marked externally 

 by a pair of small, hairy, scrotum-like swellings below the 

 inferior edge of the pouch on the perineal region (fig. 4, F, t.). 



Since Lonnberg discovered no normal anal glands, it 

 appears to me that these paired diverticula must represent 

 them. In that case they differ from the anal glands of 

 other jEluroids in having their orifices widely dilated and 

 placed side by side below the anus, as well as in the sub- 

 cutaneous extension of the saccular portion of the gland. 

 If these structures described by Lonnberg are the anal 

 glands referred to by Carlsson, it is singular that the latter 

 author failed to mention the peculiarities above recorded. 

 If they are not the anal glands of other ^luroids, they 

 must be interpreted as a special modification of the anal 

 sac, peculiar to Cryptoprocia. 



In the specimen I examined, of which the skin had to be 

 left intact, I could not find the orifices of the anal glands 

 in the normal position ; and, not having read Lonnberg^s 

 paper at the time, I did not look below the anus for the 

 orifices of the diverticula he discovered. 



Lonnberg, however, so far as I can ascertain, did not 

 dissect the anal pouch, and he speaks of his material as 

 "not very well preserved/' adding "the function of these 

 pouches is quite difficult to understand or explain .... 

 There were no contents to be seen and no large glands 

 could be detected. It is, however, possible that the sur- 

 rounding walls contain small glands, the secretion of which 

 is stored up in the pouch." From this it appears that he 

 did not consider these pouches as the homologues of the 

 true anal glands, but as secondary reservoirs for secretion 

 emitted, presumably, by the walls of the anal sac *. 



Further testimony of the existence of anal glands in 

 Cryptoprocta and of the ofii'ensiveness of their secretion is 

 supplied by two independent sources. Telfair, as quoted by 



* Owing probably to an oversight, neither of Lounberg's figures of the 

 anal sac shows the anus, although, both in the text of his paper and in 

 the legvnd of the plate, tig. 2 is stated to represent the " circumanal 

 pouch more open, so that the constricted anus can be seen," as well as 

 the openings into the " subfrenal pouch " (saccular diverticula). 



