352 Mr. 11. I. Pocock on some 



The confidence I place in this gland, as an important 

 criterion of affinity and as a basis for the classification of the 

 Vive ridse, is admittedly founded on two assumptions: first, 

 that a specialised organ of that description when once 

 acquired and elaborated is not likely to be eliminated, with- 

 out some radical change in mode of life depriving it of its 

 usefulness; and, second, that there is nothing to justify the 

 view that it has been acquired twice, or more times, within 

 the limits of this group of iEluroid carnivores. 



I therefore attach to it a systematic value higher than that 

 accorded to the feet or teeth which, there is evidence to show, 

 are organs of a high degree of plasticity along certain lines, 

 the teeth altering in size, shape, and position apparently in 

 accordance with diet, and the feet becoming modified in the 

 direction of digitigradism and other particulars according to 

 the mode of progression required by the nature of the soil, 

 the change from terrestrial to scansorial habits, or vice versa. 

 The Scent-gland. — Adopting the scent-gland as a criterion, 

 the systematic position of the three remaining Mascarene 

 genera, Galidia, Salanoia, and Galidictis, and the recently 

 established Mungotictis (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (8) xvi. 

 p. 120, 1915), remains to be settled. In some characters 

 they resemble the mongooses, in some the civets and genets, 

 in some they differ from both those sections. They are not 

 definitely classifiable with either. But I think it is a mistake 

 to consider them as intermediate between the two, or as 

 inclining rather to the mongooses than to the civets, as 

 Mivart held. Since Mivart's time fresh or spirit-preserved 

 examples of Galidictis and Galidia have been examined, and 

 the scent-pouch has been found in both. 



A female example of Galidictis eximius ( = striata) was 

 examined by Beddard, and his figure of the gland (PI. XIV. 

 fig. 4) shows that in position and, apparently, in structure it 

 resembles the homologous organ in Genetta, that is to say, 

 it is wholly perineal and consists of two closely applied lobes 

 meeting to form a narrow branching rima (P. Z. S. 1907, 

 p. 805). 



As regards Galidia elegans, the only known species of the 

 genus, Beddard stated that the male has no scent-gland 

 (P. Z. S. 1909, p. 477) ; but a year later Miss Carlsson 

 detected the organ in a female of that species (Zool. Jahrb. 

 Syst. xxviii. p. 559, 1910). This discrepancy is difficult to 

 explain. Two explanations suggest themselves : — first, that 

 Beddard overlooked the organ, which is improbable, unless 

 possibly it was as little developed as it is in the young male 



