1882. ] MR. O. THOMAS ON THE AFRICAN MUNGOOSES. 59 
8. On the African Mungooses. 
By Onprretp Tomas, I.Z.8., British Museum, 
[Received December 2, 1881.] 
(Plate ITI.) 
In the Zoology of the Yunnan Expedition’, Dr. John Anderson of 
the Calcutta Museum has recently fully worked out the Oriental 
species of that difficult Viverrine group, the Mungooses; and the 
present paper is an attempt to treat similarly those that are found in 
Africa, The latter, however, are very much less uniform in structure 
than the former, as they belong to no less than seven genera, six 
being peculiar to Africa, while the Oriental forms, as Dr. Anderson 
has shown, ought all to be included in the restricted genus Herpestes. 
The Oriental and African Mungooses together form a very natural 
subfamily, the Herpestinse*, quite distinct from the other large group 
of the Viverridee, namely the Civets and Paradoxures, or Vivervine. 
Prof. Flower, in his well-known paper on the classification of the 
Carnivora ®*, says of the Viverride (p. 35) that ‘“‘they show a great 
tendency to break into two groups, of which Viverra, Paradoxurus, 
Arctictis, &c. belong to one, and Herpesées and its various modifi- 
cations to the other, /hyzena being an aberrant member of the 
last,” and (p. 20) gives a description of the characters of the base 
of the skull in this group, compared with those of the Viverrine. 
Externally the members of this subfamily are distinguished by 
their comparatively lithe and slender form, and by their generally 
blunt, elongated, and but slightly curved claws, as compared with the 
short, sharp, semiretractile, and strongly curved claws of most of the 
Viverrinee. 
The following are the only two previous papers of any importance 
on the subject of the African species of this group :—(1) Temminck, 
Esq. Zool. Cote Guinée, pp. 93-118 (1853) ; and (2) Gray, P.Z.8, 
1864, pp. 547-579. 
The first of these contains much useful information, especially 
with regard to the variation to which these animals are subject ; 
nevertheless, notwithstanding his clear insight into the badness of 
other people’s species, Temminck formed several bad species of his 
own init. The second, by Dr. Gray, is a complete revision of the 
group, in which, however, such a large number of untenable genera 
ave formed, and go many bad species are made and allowed, that the 
confusion into which the group had fallen cannot be said to have 
been removed by it. On the other hand, it must be admitted that 
1 Op. cit. p. 168 (1878). 
2 On the principle of strict priority this name ought to be Svricatine, Suri- 
cata antedating Herpestes by seven years ; but it would be so obviously unsuitable 
to call the subfamily after one of its most aberrant members, that IT think we are 
justified in using the later and more classical term, 
3 P.Z.8. 1869, ps4. 
