518 Mr. R. I. Pocock on the 
3. The ear had the external portion of the pinna small. as 
compared with the depression containing the cartilages, and 
there was no marginal bursa. Of the cartilages, the supra- 
tragus was rod-like and the prominence of the antero-internal 
ridge (intratragus) ended high above the intertragal notch 
leading to the inferior auditory meatus. 
4. The feet were semiplantigrade and pentadactyle, with 
the pollex and hallux inserted above the plantar pad, which 
was trilobate, not quadrilobate; the four main digits, armed 
with long fossorial claws, were united by interdigital webs 
extending to the proximal ends of the small digital pads ; the 
fore feet were naked back to the carpal pad and the hind feet 
up to and possibly including the heel. 
5. The orifices of the anal glands were outside the anus, 
and their secretion was discharged into a nearly naked 
glandular cutaneous sack with a thickened rim and capable 
of being closed by the juxtaposition of the upper and lower 
halves of this rim. 
6. The vulva was only a short distance below the lower 
edge of the anal sack and the penis was short and situated 
close to the scrotum, there being no trace of a preputial gland 
between the penis and scrotum in the male or between the 
anal sack and the vulva in the female. 
None of the existing genera conforms precisely to this 
type. Apart from Suricata, to be considered later, all of 
them have ears more complex in construction, owing to the 
formation of the two valvular lamine. 
Of the genera with complex ears, Mungos (type mungo), in 
a broad sense, with its pentadactyle naked feet, well-webbed 
digits, and cleft upper lip and moderate snout, agrees with 
the primitive type, but it differs therefrom in its carnivorous 
dentition, the upper carnassial ( pm*) being large and set back 
the conclusion that the specialized carnivorous dentition of Genetta and 
Linsang preceded in evolution the generalized omnivorous dentition of 
Paradoxurus and Fossa respectively. Also that the similarity between 
the teeth of Genettu and Mungos in number, position, and form is a 
character inherited almost unchanged from a common A#luroid ancestor. 
I believe, on the contrary, that it is a purely adaptive resemblance, and 
that the carnivorous type of dentition, attested more particularly by the 
retrogression of the upper carnassial ( pm*), accompanied by reduction in 
the size and importance of the two molars behind it and of the first 
premolar, has been independently aequired several times over within the 
limits of the Ailuroidea; and that the extraordinarily varied types of 
dentition met with in this group have been derived sometimes by elabo- 
ration, sometimes by degeneration from some such type as that of the 
typical Canide, in which the upper carnassial is set far forwards, leaving 
space for two fairly large molars behind it. 
