CHAPTER XIV. 



CARNIVORES, continued. 

 CIVETS, AARD-WOLF, AND HYENAS. 



THE Carnivores described in the present chapter are those which exhibit the nearest 

 affinity to the cats ; and they are arranged in three distinct families. The first 

 of these families includes the civets and their allies, and is represented by a large 

 number of species ; the second contains only a single species, the African aard- 

 wolf ; while the third is formed by the hyaenas, of which there are three species 

 now living. The whole assemblage is strictly confined to the Old World both at 

 the present day, and mainly also in earlier epochs of the earth's history ; l and all 

 of the species are inhabitants of the warmer regions of that hemisphere, none 

 of them ranging into the strictly northern countries. 



These animals agree with the cats (and thereby differ from all other 

 Carnivores) in certain characters connected with the skull, and also in regard to 

 the anatomy of their soft parts. The most obvious feature in connection with 

 the skull is to be found on the under-surface in the region of the internal portion 

 of the ear. Here the so-called bulla, lying immediately behind the cavity for the 

 articulation of the lower jaw, is always inflated into a bladder-like form ; the in- 

 ternal cavity of this bladder-like chamber being, except in the hysenas, divided into 

 two compartments by a vertical partition of bone. 



THE CIVET TRIBE. 

 Family VlVERRlDJE. 



Under the general title of civets may be included not only the animals to 

 which that term is properly applicable, but likewise a number of more or less 

 closely-allied Carnivores, such as genets, ichneumons or mungooses, palm-civets, 

 linsangs, etc. This assemblage includes a much more diversified group than that 

 represented by the Cat family, and is, therefore, much less easy of definition ; 

 the difficulty being considerably increased by one very aberrant species from 

 Madagascar which connects the more typical members of the family very closely 

 with the cats. 



The whole of these animals have, however, more elongated faces than the cats, 

 and their bodies are also longer, and their legs shorter than in the members of that 

 family, not even excepting the peculiar eyra. They have a larger number of 



1 An extinct Carnivore recently described from North America has been referred to the hyaenas. 



