CHARACTERS OF THE PARADOXURIN.E. 389 



retractile in the sense that the terminal phalanx can be drawn 

 back so as to lie along the outer side of the penultimate phalanx 

 as in most of the Viverridge and the Felidae. 



The hind foot resembles the fore foot in its main features, but 

 is narrower and the digital pads of the third and fourth digits 

 are united at the base ; behind their point of junction there is a 

 small triangular patch of short hair. Similar patches of hair ai-e 

 present on the underside of the proximal half of the webs, as in 

 the fore foot. The hallux is shorter than the pollex, but tho 

 hallucal lobe is lai-ge and adds consideiably to the width of the 

 plantar pad, the elements of which are well defined. Behind the 

 plantar pad the greater part of the underside of the metatarsus 

 is naked ; the naked area., narrowing posteriorly or proximally, 

 reaches to within about half an inch of the heel, which is 

 covered with hair. This naked area exhibits a median depression 

 which is narrower distally close to the plantar pad than 

 proximally towards the heel, and is bounded at the sides nearly 

 throughout its length by two thick ridges of integument, tlie 

 metatarsal pads. The external of these, narrower but a little 

 longer than the internal, is continuous distally with the external 

 lateral lobe of the plantar pad ; the intei'nal is similarly continuous 

 witli the hallucal lobe of that pad. In the specimen here described, 

 the depression between these pads or ridges is thickly covered 

 with horny sub-spiniform papillae. 



The feet of Paradoxurus hermaphroditus and P. niger show no 

 diiferences of moment from those of P. larvatus. The underside 

 of the webs, however, is naked ; and the example of P. niger- 

 examined exhibited no sharp horny papillse in the depression 

 between the metatarsal pads of the hind foot. 



• The Feet q/Arctictis. 



The fore foot resembles in all essential respects that of Para- 

 doxurus larvatics, but the web connecting the digits is naked 

 beneath, a,nd the two elements of the carpal pad are not so sharply 

 defined from one another and from the plantar pad. 



The hind foot is also like that of Paradoxurtcs in most respects, 

 particularly, be it noted, in the fusion of the digital pads of the 

 third and fourth digits proximally. Here also there is no hair on 

 the underside of the interdigital webs, the division between the 

 plantar and metatarsal pads is ill-defined, and the metatarsal area 

 itself is not sharply difi"erentiated into a median depression and 

 latex'al elongated pads. On the contrary, it is comparatively flat 

 and the naked area extends right back to the heel. In one 

 example, a full-sized but young male, the skin of the underside 

 of the heel is covered with a mat of horny, pointed papillae. 

 No such mat, however, is present on the heel of a young female, 

 and, judging from the skins in the British Museum, its develop- 

 ment is variable, the sculpturing being sometimes papillate, 

 sometimes squamous. 



