608 
NATURE 
| April 27, 1882 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF NEW OR RARE ANIMALS 
IN THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY’S LIVING 
COLLECTION | 
VII. 
17. (a [eee a CIVET-CAT (Femigalea Hard- 
wickit).—The Viverridz, or Civet-cats, form a 
well-marked family of carnivorous mammals peculiar to 
the tropics of the Old World, and mostly confined to 
Southern Asia and Africa, though one or two of them 
occur in the southern parts of Europe. 
and largest of them is the True Civet-cat (Viverra civetta), 
from the anal glands of which the old-fashioned perfume 
known as civet is extracted, and the Genets, Ichneumons, 
and Mungooses are well-known members of the same 
family, examples of which are always to be seen in the | 
Zoological Society’s Collection. 
Amongst the rarer and less familiar forms of the Vi- 
verrine groups is the very curiously-marked animal which | 
we now figure (Fig. 17) from a specimen received by the | 
Society in October, last year. Hardwicke’s Civet, though 
One of the finest | 
first described by Dr. Gray so long ago as 1830, is a very 
| scarce and little-known species, and the present example is 
believed to be the first of its kind ever brought alive to © 
this country. In 1840 Miiller and Schlegel gave an 
excellent figure and desciption of this animal, under the © 
name of Viverra dotez, in their great work upon the 
Natural History of the colonial possessions of the 
Netherlands. Their specimen was obtained in South- 
Eastern Borneo by Herr Henrici, and sent alive to the 
Gardens of the Zoological Society of Amsterdam. Hence, 
after its death, it was transferred to the National Museum 
of Leyden. Miiller adds that he never met with this 
Civet-cat himself during his extensive travels in the 
Eastern Archipelago, and had received no information as 
to its habits. 
Hardwicke’s Civet-cat was also figured and described 
| by Eydoux and Souleyet in the ‘‘ Zoology”’ of the voyage 
of the Bonite in 1841, under the name Hemigale zebra, 
but again without any information as to its habits, not 
even the locality of their specimen being stated. 
| So far as has been ascertained from the Zoological 
Fic. 17,—Hardwicke’s Civet-cat. 
Society’s living specimen, this animal is excessivly shy 
and retiring in disposition, and apparently does not leave 
its retreat voluntarily except at night. When handled, it 
ejects a highly acrid and skunk-like secretion from its anal 
glands. The length of the body in the example figured 
is about 24 inches, and that of the tail about 18 inches. 
18. The Warty-faced Honey-Eater (Weliphaga phirygia). 
—No group of animals is more characteristic of the pecu- 
liar fauna of Australia than the great family of Honey- 
Eaters (Meliphagidze), of which upwards of sixty species, 
belonging to many different genera, are distributed 
throughout the length and breadth of that Continent. 
But although the Honey-eaters are so common in Aus- 
tralia, and there is an extensive importation of living birds 
from Sydney and other Australian ports every year into this 
country, very few of the Meliphagidae have yet reached 
Europe alive. Almost the only Honey-eater habitually 
imported living—is the so-called Parson-bird (Prosthe- 
madera Nove Zeelandiz) of New Zealand, which is much 
valued in that colony as a cage-bird, and thus finds its 
* Cont‘nued from p. 393. 
way not unfrequently to London. The fact‘is, that the 
organisation of the Honey-eaters, being adapted for an 
active and wandering life, in perpetual search of the 
nectar of the flowering-trees which their pencilled tongue 
|so admirably fits them to collect, does not render 
them very suitable subjects for captivity, and it is only 
recently that means have been found to preserve these 
birds alive and in good health in cages. It has thus 
happened that almost the only one of the vast tribe of 
Australian Honey-eaters that has been exhibited in the 
Zoological Society’s aviaries is the present species, which 
we now figure (Fig. 18) from four examples lately received 
| from New South Wales. 
In his great work on the “Birds of Australia,” Mr. 
Gould tells us that the Warty-faced Honey-eater is not 
only one of the handsomest of its tribe, but also one of 
the most beautiful birds inhabiting Australia, the strongly 
contrasted tints of its black and yellow plumage rendering 
it a most conspicuous and pleasing object, particularly 
during flight. 
Although very generally distributed, its$presence ap- 
