818 



MR. B. I. POCOOK ON THE 



3Iartes in hairiness and pad development. But in G. africana 

 alone have I found the plantar pad broken up into four elements 

 to the same extent as in M. niartes ; and only in G. africana 

 could I find the inner moiety of the carpal pad ; but, judging 

 from its minute size in this species, it may have been overlooked 

 in the others. (Text-fig. 33, C-F.) 



Writing of the Minks {Lutreola), Flower and Lydekker 

 ('Mammals, Living and Extinct,' p. 586), said that they difller from 

 the Polecats, Stoats, and "Weasels " by the toes being partially 

 webbed and by the absence of hair in the intervals between the 

 naked pads of the soles of the feet." From this statement it 

 seems quite clear that neither of these authors was awa,re that 

 the toes of Polecats, Stoats, and Weasels are fully webbed up 

 to the digital pivds. As for the hairiness of the soles of the feet, I 

 cannot discover from examining; the lone' series of dried skins of 

 Mii:iks in the British Museum that there is any essential 

 difference between them and Polecats, Weasels, and Stoats in 

 that or any other pa.rticular. The area between the plantar and 

 digital pads is covered with hair ; and it appeal's that Baird was 

 perfectly correct when he said that the feet are well furred 

 between the pads, though the hair is scantier in summer than in 

 winter. 



In some members of this group, however, the feet are quite 

 naked beneath. Gray, for example, based the genus Gymnopus * 

 upon certain Oriental species I'elated to Mustela and Gale, namely 

 nudipes, strigidorsa, and katliiah ; and to these africana was 

 added. According to the diagnosis the soles of the hind feet in 

 these species have three oblong pads, an arched and bald space 

 behind them, and the heel hairy. But in the Egyptian example of 

 Ga.le africana above referred to the feet are approximately as 

 hairy as in G. nivalis ; and in kathiah, which I provisionally retain 

 in Mustela, pending the discovery of the structure of the baculum 

 or other characters to settle its affinities, there is a patch of hairs 

 on the lower side of the webs and also between the carpal and 

 plantar pads, and the hair extends down to the plantai' pad on 

 the hind foot. Thus both africana and kathiah fall outside the 

 genus according to the diagnosis. 



In Plesiogale nudipes and strigidorsa the feet are quite naked 

 beneath, and the plantar and carpal pads are relatively con- 

 siderably larger than in Mustela, Gale, and Futoriios, and 

 a,pparently less coarsely sti'iated. The plantar pads are very 

 distinctly four-lobed, the three main lobes being widely in 

 contact, while the poUical and hallucal lobes are attached to the 

 posterior end of the inner of the three main lobes. The two 

 carpal pads are well developed and almost in contact. Just 

 above them there is a narrow naked space, and there is a 

 corresponding space, which, however, seems to vary individually 



* Quoted in this paper as Tlesiogale (see above p. 805), of wliicli nudipes is the 

 type-species. I premise that the group is at least as much worth nominal 

 reco<?nition as Lutreola or IColonohus. 



