24 

 3. Notes on the dissection of the Paradoxurtjs Typus, 



AND OF DiPUS iEGYPTIUS. By H. N. TuRNER, JuN. 



Ha\iug received, througli the liberality of the Society, a few of 

 the animals that have died in the menagerie in the course of the pre- 

 sent winter, I feel hound to lay before them, as well as I niay be able, 

 whatever details of structure I observe which may be new, or may 

 give rise to ideas calculated to assist in the advancement of the science. 

 Smce the Society have done me the honour to insert in their Pro- 

 ceedings the somewhat lengthened communication which I was last 

 permitted to lay before them, I hope that the remarks I have now to 

 offer, some of which have a bearing on the same subject, may also 

 prove accej)table. 



It formed part of my object in that paper to demonstrate that the 

 Viverrine group, (of which the Paradoxuri are now universally ad- 

 mitted to form a part,) are so closely alhed to the Cats as to safely 

 warrant their being united with them in one family, instead of being 

 looked upon as a section intermediate to the canine and feline groups, 

 or, on account of their number of tuberculous molars, more closely 

 alhed to the former, in which light they have very frequently been 

 considered : and I think it will be apparent, from the observations I 

 have now to bring forward, that the genus Paradoxurus, one of the 

 least exclusively carnivorous of the order, and formerly associated 

 with the Bears in the plantigrade di-\asion, has a much closer relation- 

 ship with the group, which, from its being pre-eminently carnivorous, 

 is usually considered as " typical " of the order, than naturalists have 

 been wont to anticipate. It is not unfrequently the case, that when 

 an affinity between two species or genera is established upon essen- 

 tial peculiarities of structure, certain minor details, or even habits and 

 actions of the animal, remind one so forcibly of the relationship we 

 have already proved to exist, that they assume an unlooked-for de- 

 gree of interest ; and, having kept for some time a living specimen 

 of the common Paradoxurus, I think a few of the observations I have 

 made upon it may on this account be interesting, in connection with 

 the structural peculiarities which the receipt of a dead one has enabled 

 me to remark. 



The claws are as retractile as in the domestic Cat, although from 

 the absence of the long and soft hair, with which the sides of the toes 

 are clothed in the latter animal, they are fully exposed when in the 

 retracted position. But on examhiiug the claws of the Paradoxure, 

 it becomes obvious that the raising of the point from the ground is 

 not the only means employed by Nature to maintain their sharpness. 

 Every one must have observed in the common Cat, as well as in the 

 larger species preserved in our menageries, the habit of occasionally 

 scratching or dragging with the claws against the surface of any hard 

 substance, a process not apparently calculated to improve their sharp- 

 ness, but obviously intended to aid the shelling off of the outer layer 

 of the claw, which is continually renewed by growth from the root, 

 and the blunted point is thus occasionally replaced by a new one. I 

 have not observed this habit in the living Paradoxurus ; but on ex- 

 amining the claws of the dead one, I noticed that some of them were 



