348 Mr. R. I. Pocock on the Genus Eupleres. 



The pattern o£ Fossa may be briefly referred to. In the 

 typical species, F. fossa, it consists of spots on the body and 

 bands on the neck ; but in F. majori, Dollm., there are four 

 longitudinal dark stripes on each side. The uppermost of 

 these runs from just behind the occiput to the root of the 

 tail, the spinal area being without a median stripe. The 

 second follows a parallel course, but extends farther forwards 

 to the root of the ear, and becomes more broken up on the 

 thigh. The third is shorter and only reaches the base of the 

 neck. The fourth and lowest is quite short and thinner. It 

 extends from the outside of the thigh about halfway along 

 the line where the flank passes into the belly. The general 

 resemblance of this pattern to that of Galidictis* is obvious, 

 despite the great differences between the two genera. 



A newly born young, probably belonging to F. majori, but 

 referred by Mivart to F. fossa, resembles the adult of the 

 former species, except that there is a pair of very narrow 

 parallel stripes in the lumbar region. These, I suspect, 

 represent the median spiral stripe seen in Genetta. If so, 

 they suggest that this stripe has been suppressed in Fossa as 

 in Galidictis. 



The Genus Eupleres. 



One other genus may be briefly considered in this connection, 

 namely Eupleres, a Mascarene form so aberrant in dentition 

 that Mivart made it the representative of a special subfamily, 

 Eupleiina?, a view with which I am not prepared to disagree. 



Of this animal I have only seen one stuffed example in the 

 British Museum, but according to Miss Carlsson (Zool. Jahrb. 

 Syst. xvi. pp. 218-236, 1902) the genus is more Viverrine 

 than Mungotine (Herpestine). To this author's list of 

 characters affiliating Eupleres with the Viverrines may be 

 added the presence of the bursa on the ear. As she has 

 shown, there is no perineal scent-pouch, no anal sack, the 

 vulva is tolerably close to the anus (PI. XIII. fig. 1), the 

 hind foot is covered with hair down to the plantar pad, in 

 the fore foot the area between the carpal pads and the 

 plantar pad is hairy, the paws are broad and short, the 

 digital pads are wide and not compressed, and the web 

 joining the toes extends to their proximal ends (PI. XIII. 

 rigs. 2, 3). In all these respects Eupleres resembles Linsang 

 and Fossa. The claws are longish and not retractile, or only 

 imperfectly so, as in Fossa ; and, as in some examples, at all 

 events, of the latter, the area between the digital and plantar 



* See Aim. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (8) xvi. pi. vii. (1915). 



