MYDAUS MELICEPS. 



an opportunity of examining a very interesting subject, prepared by Mr. Himter 

 himself, representing the anal-glands of a species of IMephitis, and their situation 

 relatively to the rectum. This forms part of a very instructive series, exhibiting the 

 anal-glands and follicules of variovis animals of this family, by which a thick fluid is 

 secreted, and which comprises both the Viverra Zibetha, which furnishes the odori- 

 ferous civet, and the Mephitis and Mydaus, whose intolerably fetid exhalations 

 prevent the approach of other animals. 



I have represented on the Plate of Illustrations a comparative view of the head, 

 the teeth, the claws, and the anal-glands of the Mydaus meliceps from Java, and of 

 a species of Mephitis, which genus has hitherto been found only in America. To the 

 most striking differences which have already been cited from the description of 

 Mr. F. Cuvier, it may be proper to add, that the front teeth of Mephitis, in both 

 jaws, are very different from those of Mydaus. Their peculiarities in the latter 

 have already been detailed in the generic description; those of Mephitis, in the 

 upper jaw, are considerably longer and narrower, and in the lower jaw they have a 

 different arrangement, the tooth on each side, next the exterior tooth, being removed 

 somewhat interiorly from the general series. The canine teeth in Mydaus are small, 

 compressed, and slightly curved: in Mephitis they are long, erect, and sharp, 

 resembling these teeth in Canis, Mustek, and Felis. In the form of the grinders 

 there is a greater resemblance; but the third in the lower jaw, the carnivorous tooth 

 of Mr. Cuvier, exhibits some peculiarities in Mydaus which do not exist in Mephitis. 

 The claws in IMydaus are slightly curved, slender, narrow, both in a vertical and 

 horizontal direction, and formed for a very delicate manner of perforating the 

 ground : in Mephitis they are more suddenly curved and vertically compressed, and 

 likewise proportionally shorter. In Mephitis the lobes of the ear, though short, 

 appear externally covered with very delicate fur : in Mydaus they are nearly con- 

 cealed from view by the long hairs which cover the neck, and sides of the head. 



From the preceding details which exhibit those characters of Mydaus, by which 

 it is entitled to be considered a distinct genus, its situation in a natural arrangement 

 does likewise appear. If it differ from Mephitis in those points which have been 

 clearly brought into view, particularly in the form of the head and body, in the size 

 and structure of the tail, and in some peculiarities of the front teeth and claws, it 

 agrees with that genus in the structure of the glands, on which the fetid odour, 

 peculiar to both, depends, and in the system of dentition, as far as relates to the 

 grinders generally. In the form of the head and snout, our animal so strikingly 

 resembles the Badger, that Mr. Cuvier has proposed, for specific distinction, the 

 name of Meliceps. But it has still other points of affinity to Meles. It agrees with 

 that animal in the form of the external ear, and its claws more closely resemble those 

 -of a Badger, than those of any other animal with which I have had an opportunity 

 of comparing it. I am unable to determine the affinity between Mydaus and Meles, 



