622 MR. 0. THOMAS ON A NEW MUNGOOSE. [ Dec. 3, 
6. On a new Mungoose allied to Herpestes albicaudatus. 
By Ouprizetp Tuomas, Natural History Museum. 
[Received November 20, 1889.] 
(Plate LXII.) 
In a Monograph of the African Mungooses which I had the honour 
of laying before this Society in 1882*, the extreme constancy in the 
size of the teeth in this group was pointed out, and the species were 
shown to be readily distinguishable by the relative dimensions of their 
posterior cheek-teeth, both upper and lower. While the more 
typical and specialized species, such for example as H. ichneumon, 
have their m* very small, and averaging in its greatest diameter less 
than 60 per cent. of the last premolar (p*), one species, H. albicaudatus, 
forming the type of the subgenus Ichneumia, has this percentage 70 
or more, and all the teeth are of a much less specialized and secant 
type than in the others. 
The species I now propose to describe is remarkable for having 
its posterior teeth even larger than in H. albicaudatus. The type 
Specimen is a skeleton without a skin, which has been some time in 
the Cambridge Museum, and which the authorities of that institution 
have been good enough to transfer by way of exchange to the 
National Collection. This specimen is believed to have been col- 
lected by Mr. T. E. Buckley either on the Limpopo or in Zululand, 
but most unfortunately all definite record of its history has been lost. 
The most striking characteristic of the new species, which may be 
termed Herpestes grandis, is its large size and great length of limb. 
Its skull is only exceeded in length, and that very slightly, by one 
skull in the whole Museum collection of Mungooses, namely by that 
of the type specimen of H. galera robustus, Gray”, a thickly built, 
short-limbed form, whose long-bones are nearly 20 per cent. shorter 
than are those of H. grandis. 
Comparing now H. grandis with H. albicaudatus, to which alone 
it is in any way closely related, we find that that species occasionally 
attains dimensions approximately equal to its own, although the 
great majority of specimens, especially those from North-east Africa 
and Arabia’, are very much smaller. 
The real difference between the two lies in the form and dimensions 
of the teeth. Firstly, in H. grandis the canines both above and 
below are markedly longer and heavier than in H. albicaudatus, ex- 
ceeding those in the largest available specimen of that species by at 
least 2 mm. in length above and 3 mm. below, and in thickness by 
1 or 13 mm., although it is almost impossible to take the measure- 
ments exactly, owing to the absence of a distinct cingulum in this 
? P.Z.S8. 1882, p. 59 e¢ segg. 
* See the above-quoted paper, p. 72. 
* Since my Monograph was written, Mr. A. 8. G. Jayakar has obtained 
examples of this species at Muscat, 
