356 Mr. R. I. Pocock on some of the 



quently described the toes as " half-webbed " (Cliarlesworth's 

 Mag. Nat. Hist. i. p. 579, 1837). Again, Eydoux and 

 Souleyet (Voy. de la ' Bonite,' i. p. 27, 181]) wrote:— 

 " Ses doigts soiit palmes anterieurement et posterieurement, 

 mais ils sont peu allonges.'''' Later, Gray (P. Z. S. 1864, 

 p. 521, and Cat. Carn. Brit. Mus. p. 78, 1869) described the 

 toes as " being short, covered with dense hairs and slighth'- 

 webbed at the base " ; and certainly his omission to mention 

 the webs on the feet of otlier Paradoxuriue civets justifies 

 in a measure the conclusion that the webs are peculiar to 

 Cy nog ale. 



This conclusion was apparently drawn by Mivart, when he 

 wrote (P. Z. S. 1882, p. 172) :— " Its webbed feet, short 

 tail, long moustaciies, together with its exceptional upper 

 lip, serve, however, to mark it as a very distinct genus. ^^ 

 BLmford ('Mammalia of British India,' 1888, p. 119) also 

 referred to the webbed feet as a peculiarity. Flower and 

 Lydekker, however {' Mammalia,^ 1891, p. 535), with more 

 caution, repeated verbatim Gray^s description of 1864 : 

 "Toes short, slightly webbed at base^^; but the second of 

 these two authors C^ Handbook to the Caruivora,^ 1896, 

 p. 242) introduced for this animal the trivial title " The web- 

 footed Civet,'"'' and in his diagnosis of it said : — ''This genus 

 may be easily recognized by the absence of a vertical groove 

 on the upper lip, the short tail, the partially webbed feet, 

 and by the under surface of the tarsus and metatarsus being 

 rather less naked than in the Palm-Civets " — this last item 

 being derived from Mivart's descri])tion of 1882. 



A knowledge of the lacts enforces the conclusion that the 

 authors quoted never compared the feet of Cynogale with 

 those of its nearest allies, all of which, like most Carnivores, 

 have the digits webbed up to the proximal end of the digital 

 pads. An inspection of the feet even on a dried skin of 

 Cynogale — from which the figure of the hind foot published 

 by Mivart iu 1882 seems to liave been taken — shows clearly 

 that the webs do not extend farther up the digits than is the 

 case in Paradoxurus, for example. More than that, I find 

 that in the above-mentioned example in alcohol in the 

 British Museum the ends of the digits project farther 

 beyond the webs than in any genus of Paradoxurines known 

 to me. The webs do not reach the proximal margins of the 

 digital pads either in the fore foot or in the hind foot ; but 

 what the webs lose in depth they gain in breadth. They 

 are broader than in any other Paradoxuriue or Viverrine 

 genus, and the digits are capable consequently of wider 

 lateral expansion. In that sense, and that only, are the feet 



