THE CIVETS. 



191 



very unimportant distinctions. They are 

 nocturnal animals, with pupils like cats, which 

 they about equal in size. They approach 

 the genets in the elongation of their powerful 

 body, in the shortness of their legs, and in 

 the form of the head. The tail, almost as 

 long as the body, can be rolled up, but does 

 not serve for a prehensile organ, as has some- 

 times been asserted. The feet have five toes, 

 armed with pretty long but hardly retractile 



claws. In their mode of progression these 

 animals are semi-plantigrade, and the musk- 

 pouch exists only in the form of an open fold 

 or fissure, in which lie the openings of the 

 ducts leading from the glands, which excrete 

 a substance like tallow, having a very dis- 

 agreeable odour. 



The paradoxures are capital climbers, and 

 hunt principally after birds and birds' nests; 

 but they also commit great ravages in the 



Fig. 93. — The Common Paradoxure or Palm-cat {Paradoxurus typus). 



plantations, where they seek for sugary fruits, 

 such as pine-apples and bananas, but still 

 more for ripe coffee-beans. They eat the 

 fleshy pods of the coffee-fruit and evacuate 

 the undigested beans, which are searched for 

 amidst their excrements under the pretext 

 that they make the best coffee. But the 

 yield from this source scarcely makes good 

 the damage done by these animals, and the 

 Javanese prefer to reap their coffee for them- 

 selves and to keep their fowls, rather than 

 to pay with these the labour that the para- 

 doxure performs in plundering their coffee- 

 bushes. The numerous species are distrib- 

 uted through the East Indies, including the 

 Sunda Islands. Fig. 93 represents the 



largest species of the genus, the Common 

 Paradoxure or Palm-cat, the Coffee-cat of 

 the Hindus [Paradoxurtis typus), whose dark 

 yellow coat is marked with black spots. 



The Mampalon {Cynogale Bcunciiii), fig. 

 94, is the type of the aquatic forms among 

 the Viverrida. The shape of the body is 

 almost like that of a very long and power- 

 fully built otter. The very short strong feet 

 have five toes, which are webbed to the 

 middle, and armed with strong curved non- 

 retractile claws. The mampalon is semi- 

 plantigrade. The sole of the foot is naked. 

 The broad flattened head has very short 

 external ears. The muzzle is broad and 

 rounded, and has at the end slit-like nostrils, 



