480 



THE CARNIVORES 



brown, becoming lighter on the head, the individual hairs having but one or two 

 rings of different colors. 



The four remaining mungooses to be mentioned under this heading collectively 

 constitute the genus Crossarchus, which is distinguished from the preceding by 

 having only three premolar teeth on either side of each jaw, and likewise by the 

 under surface of the hind-feet being completely naked. A further distinction 

 between the two is to be found in the circumstances that, while in Meller's mun- 

 goose the palate of the skull is concave, in the members of the present genus it is 

 completely flat. All are of burrowing habits. 



Of the four species, the cusimanse (C. obscurus), ranging in West Africa from 

 the Camerun mountains to Sierra Leone, and the Gambian mungoose (C. gam- 



THE CUSIMANSE. 

 (One-fourth natural size.) 



bianus) of the Gambia have uniformly-colored and grizzled fur. The former, 

 which is figured above, is of a dull brown color, with yellow tips to the hairs, while 

 the latter is gray, with the hairs ringed. On the other hand, the East African 

 species, namely, the zebra mungoose (C. zebra) and the banded mungoose (C.fasri- 

 atus) , have the back banded with transverse stripes, which are narrow in the for- 

 mer and broad in the latter, as shown in the illustration on the next page. The 

 zebra mungoose, which is confined to Abyssinia, is further distinguished by the 

 rufous color of the under parts ; while in the banded mungoose, of which the range 

 extends from the eastern portion of the Cape Colony to Mozambique, the color of 

 the under surface of the body is grizzled gray. 



