882.] PROF. ST.-GEORGE MIVART ON THE EZLUROIDEA. 193 
(21) Snout very slender. 
(22) Zygomata very slender. 
(23) Median cerebellar prominence in skull very marked. 
(24) Canines very small. nef 
2 3 
(25) Wide diastemata between ets oo Es 
M. 1&2 1 P.S&4> 
(26) sya Very like 54g in shape. 
By characters 21-26 the Huplerine differ from all the other 
Viverride. 
In reviewing the Viverride so far, we have found what seem to 
be curious modifications of one and another section of the family. 
Thus, in Cynogale we seem to have a Paradoxure specially adapted 
for an aquatic and fish-catching life—a sort of Viverrine Otter with 
a singular superficial resemblance to Potamogale. In Arctictis, on the 
other hand, we have a Paradoxure specially arboreal, and with teeth 
so little carnivorous that, but for Arctogale, we might hesitate to 
assign it a close connexion with Paradoxurus. Both are Asiatic 
forms; and Asia is the special home of the Viverrine subfamily of 
Viverrid . The special home of the Herpestine subfamily is Africa. 
Of the Viverrine animals of Madagasear yet noticed, we have 
the Fossa and Rasse as examples of the Viverrine ; and we have the 
singular little intermediate group of Galidictine and the very excep- 
tional Euplerine. While the most carnivorous Viverrine yet here 
considered (Nandinia) is African, the most insectivorous is from 
Madagascar, where we might expect to find the most anomalous 
Mammalian forms. But if I am right ina suspicion I have already 
expressed, Madagascar is yet more remarkable as presenting the 
most exceptional development of the Herpestine root of the Viver- 
ride ; for it seems to me by no means impossible that Cryptoprocta 
may be a very diverging root-form more or less allied to Crossar- 
chus and Herpestes. 
My examination of the skeleton of Cryptoprocta has left no doubt 
upon my mind that, so far as it is concerned, it is an altogether 
Viverrine, and not at alla Feline, animal. I cannot, therefore, see 
my way at present to regarding it as the type of a distinct family, 
although when its soft parts have been described it may turn, out 
to merit that distinction. Whatever its ancestral affinities may 
have been, it has clearly attained the rank of a subfamily; and 
at first I was inclined to regard it (as had been suggested by 
P. Gervais!) as a form allied to, and a sort of exaggeration of, the 
African genus Wandinia; but the only portion of its visceral anatomy 
yet known to me seems to point to another affinity, namely to that I 
have just indicated. It will, I suspect, be found to have Cowper’s 
glands, a Viverrine prostate gland, and a Viverrine brain, but no 
scent-gland—no pouch or glandular grooves just behind the genital 
aperture. The situation of its anal opening in the midst of a fossa, 
as described by Mr. Bennett”, is unlike the Viverrine and Galidic- 
1 Hist. Nat. des Mammif. vol. ii. p. 41. 
? Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. i. p. 137. 
Proc. Zoou. Soc.—1882, No. XIII. 13 
