340 BULLETIN: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 
shortly after dawn, one was found already dead having been bitten 
through the neck by a leopard whose tracks were seen in the path. 
On another occasion we startled one in the early afternoon, that had 
been ensconced in the hollow under the roots of a fallen tree, no doubt 
asleep. 
GENETTA ABYSSINICA (Riippell). 
Abyssinian Civet-cat. 
Viverra abyssinica Riippell, Neue wirbelth. fauna Abyssinien. Saugeth. 
1855, p.-o0, pi. 11. 
Along the Blue Nile and the Dinder River this seemed to be a com- 
mon species. Specimens were trapped at Bados and Magangani on 
the Blue Nile and at the latter spot Dr. Phillips shot one that was 
clambering up the trunk of a large baobad tree in the full sunlight of 
noon. At Bados, one was caught in a trap and found next morning 
partly eaten by a large cat, apparently a Caracal, that bounded off in 
the dusk when surprised. Curiously, we did not succeed in trapping 
any in the more northern part of our journey between Sennar and 
Bados, where perhaps they are less common. 
The extraordinary amount of color variation in this group renders. 
the division into races a matter of much uncertainty. Professor 
Matschie (1902) in his review of the civet-cats, was able to examine 
some 240 skins in the Berlin Zodlogical Museum, and recognized no 
less than thirty-three forms, all of which may be considered races of 
two species, the one with a longer-haired, the other with a shorter- 
haired tail. In the latter group belong the specimens obtained by 
the Phillips Expedition. Although the propriety of recognizing so 
many local races may be questioned and the value of certain of the 
characters considered distinctive is yet to be shown, the four skins 
preserved do agree in having the light tail annulations much wider 
than the dark, and the feet practically of the same light gray on both 
the superior and the inferior surfaces, marks which Matschie finds 
distinctive of the civet-cats of the Red Sea coast (G. schraderi from 
Massawa) and the present species, described by Riippell from between 
Kordofan and Gondar in Abyssinia. As these specimens are practi- 
cally topotypes of abyssinica, a brief statement of the variation in 
color is of interest. This is mainly a matter of the relative amounts of 
black, rusty, and buff in the pattern, and the degree to which the rows 
of spots coalesce to form stripes. In two specimens, the ground color 
