THE COMMON GENET. 



It is of a grey colour, spotted with brown or black ; the 

 muzzle is blackish, but has white spots on each side of its 

 extremity ; on the eye-brows and cheeks are also white spots ; 

 the tail is as long as the body, and annulated with black and 

 white, the black rings being from nine to eleven in number, 

 and the white ones from seven to eight. Some specimens differ 

 in the size and number of their spots, in the bands along the 

 shoulders and neck, and in the lines on the nape of the neck, 

 &c. In all, however, the pouch is reduced to a slight depression, 

 formed by the projection of the glands, and has scarcely any 

 visible excretion, although an odour is diffused from it, which 

 is more faint and agreeable than that of the civet : their nails 

 are completely retractile ; * and in the light, the pupils of their 

 eyes form a vertical fissure. 



Belon tells us that he saw genets in the houses at Constan- 



Illustrations (pi. xliii.) which represents a young specimen with whitish and 

 not brown legs, being similar to one from Senegal seen by Cuvier. That of 

 Buffon (ix. xxxvi.) has not the bands on the shoulders sufficiently marked ; 

 and his Genet te du Cap, figured in his Supplement (vii. pi. Iviii.), is the same 

 as Sonnerat's Civet te de Malacca (Voyage, pi. xxxix.) and Vosmaer's Chat 

 bisaam, of which Gmelin has made as many species, appear to be the common 

 genet. But the pretended Genette de France of Buffon (Supp. iii. pi. xlvii.), 

 the Civette a bandeau of Geoffrey is the paradoxure genet, or pougoune of 

 India. (Paradoxurus typus, F. Cuv.) 



* Most popular works on zoology erroneously state that the claws of the 

 genet are ww-retractile. 



