396 MR. R. I. POCOCK ON A [ Apr. 6, 
external or adanal portion of the gland consisted of spongy tissue 
traversed by a narrow passage leading to the aperture on the 
papilla. ‘This no doubt was the secreting area. ‘The internal or 
adoral portion, on the contrary, formed a hollow semi-oval space, 
which apparently acts as a reservoir for the storage of the 
ejectable fluid. 
The discovery of this form of J/ellivora in the Sierra Leone 
district considerably extends the known geographical range of 
the genus, which had not been previously recorded to the west 
of Lake Chad. It was also known to occur in the district between 
the Niger and the Congo, in the Ituri Forest, and in East and 
South Africa from Abyssinia and Somaliland to Cape Colony 
and Angola. 
The Kast and South African Ratels have always been referred 
to the same species, JZ. ratel Sparrm., of which J/. capensis Schy., 
M. mellivora G. Cuv., and IM. typicus A. Sm. are absolute 
synonyms. There does not seem to have been sufficient material 
collected in different parts of East Africa to show whether these 
animals have been differentiated into subspecies distinguishable 
from typical J. ratel or not; but there is no doubt that specimens, 
from Suakin for example, are very like those from Cape Colony. 
Judging, nevertheless, from material in the British Museum, it 
seems that South African specimens have on an average more 
black hairs in the dorsal pelage and the white marginal line 
more strongly pronounced than in North-east African examples. 
Three distinct species, however, have been described from 
West African material, namely :— 
1. Mellivora leuconota P. L. Sclater (P. Z. 8. 1867, p. 98, 
pl. viil., and 1871, p. 232). Based upon a young specimen from 
West Africa which was separated from J/. ratel on account of the 
nearly uniform whiteness of its upper side. When adult, the 
animal exhibited more grey on the posterior region of the back. 
This change in colour induced Dr. Sclater to abandon the species, 
a conclusion in which he was followed by Pousargues (Ann. Sci. 
Nat. iii. p. 275, 1896) and by W. L. Sclater (Fauna of 8. Afr., 
Mamm. i. p. 110, 1900). P. L. Sclater, however, remarked that 
even the adult animal had the crown white; and his description 
of the dorsal surface does not fit that of examples of the typical 
8. African J/. ratel in the British Museum, which have the head 
and back dark iron-grey, with a large percentage of black hairs 
mixed with the white. 
W. L. Sclater’s description of specimens in the Museum at Cape 
Town, of which he says “ general colour above from forehead to 
base of tail greyish brown, becoming darker posteriorly,” further 
shows that the head is not, so far as is known, white in the 
typical form. This is also apparently true of an example from 
Suakin, which presumably formed the basis of the description and 
figure of this animal in Anderson’s and de Winton’s ‘ Mammals 
of Egypt,’ p. 246, 1902. 
