On some Mammalia from Fantee. 65 



VIII. — Notes on some Mammalia from Fantee, including a 

 new Species of Macroxus. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. &c. 



The British Museum has received a series of skins of Mam- 

 malia that were collected by Mr. Aubinn at Fantee. 



Nandina binotata. 



The collection contains a very large and perfect skin, with 

 its skull, of this species, the head and body being 23 and the 

 tail 22 inches long. It is marked with very distinct moderate- 

 sized spots. 



This species seems to vary very greatly in the size of the 

 spots, these being in some much smaller and more numerous 

 than in others, which is particularly the case in two specimens 

 from the east coast of Africa, which we purchased of M. Ver- 

 reaux. There is a small skin of a young Viverrine animal, but 

 without tail and a great part of the head and without any 

 bones, that appears to belong to this species, sent by Dr. 

 Livingstone to the Museum in 1863. 



In the British Museum there is the skin of an animal we 

 received from Dr. Kirk in June 1861 (" it is called ' Nthoro,' 

 which eats mice and poultry, and lives in the lower Shira 

 valley"), which may be a specimen of this species; but the 

 feet are destroyed : the tail is shorter and obscurely ringed 

 with black on the upperside ; and the back has only slight 

 indications of small black spots. 



Herpestes Pluto, Temminck, Esquisses, p. 93 ; 

 Gray, Cat. Carniv. &c. B. M. p. 150. 



Hab. Fantee. 



A skin and perfect skeleton of this species is peculiar for 

 the fur not being grizzled like that of the other Herpestes. 



Macroxus Aubinnii. 



Fur blackish olive, closely and abundantly varied with 

 minute rufous dots, rather paler beneath ; tail black, lower 

 part of the hairs brown, with black bands and black tips, the 

 brown part occupying more of the hair as it reaches towards 

 the tip of the tail, which ends in a pencil of long hair ; whiskers 

 black. 



Length of the body 11 inches, tail 12^ inches. 



Hab. Fantee. Two specimens in the British Museum. 



This species is at once known by its very uniform and 

 minutely punctulated fur, its long, slender, uniformly coloured 

 tail, which is black at the upper part of the base ; but the 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. Vol. xii. 5 



