196 Mr. M. A. C. Hinton on a 
three chief cusps are low, subequal in height, and rising 
comparatively little above the talon ; the latter is not expanded, 
as in Aonyx, but is about as wide as in Lutra, while the 
cingulum on its outer side is represented merely by a feeble 
crenulation. 9 is little larger than in Lutra, of square or 
rounded form, and totally different in shape and appearance 
from that of Aonyw. 
Hab. Central Africa and the Lower Congo. 
Genotype: P. philippsi, sp. n., Central Africa. 
Other species: P. congica, Léunberg, Lower Congo. 
1. Paraonyx philippsi, sp. n. 
Size about as in Aonyw capensis hindei. General colour 
of upper parts dark chocolate-brown (almost black), con- 
spicuously frosted from the top of the head to about the level 
of the shoulders by the silvery tips of most of the longer 
hairs. Throughout the back to the root of the tail many of 
the longer hairs are similarly tipped with silver, but such 
hair-tips are neither sufficiently numerous nor sufficiently 
long to produce more than a distinct and regular peppering 
upon the dark ground-colour. Head and neck with a definite 
pattern. A broad and in places well-defined median stripe 
passes backwards from the edge of the rhinarium to terminate 
a little in advance of the level of the bases of the ears. 
Midway between eyes and ears this stripe broadens, a short, 
faint, laterally directed branch leaving it on each side. Ante- 
riorly, from nose-pad to eyes, the stripe is light clear 
yellowish-brown in colour, but behind the eyes it is dark 
brown ticked with dirty white. A large, sharply defined, 
rhombic patch of dark chocolate colour occurs on each side of 
the muzzle, occupying the whole distance between the eye 
and the nose-pad, and being bounded mesially by the median 
stripe and laterally by the seat of the mystacial bristles. Above 
each eye i8 a large whitish patch, bounded mesially by the 
median stripe and anteriorly by the postero-internal border of 
the dark preorbital patch. From the posterior canthus of the 
eye a faint and imperfectly continuous dusky streak passes back 
towards the base of the ear on each side. The ears are dusky, 
with conspicuous white borders. The lips, chin, and throat 
are white as in Aonyw, the white extending upwards for some 
little distance in front of the shoulders, and being quite as 
regularly and sharply separated from the darker dorsal tints 
as in that genus, although the contrast is greatly weakened 
by the silvery frosting of the head and shoulders previously 
} 
ie fee 
ne a 
