EXTERNAL CHARACTERS OF MONGOOSES. 371 



end on each side before reaching the middle line beneath the 

 anus. 



Each of the depressions or folds above described contains a 

 small glandular pit with several secreting pores, and the glands 

 beneath these pores appear to be simple enlargements of the 

 ordinary sebaceous or follicular glands of the skin. It is quite 

 clear that none of them represents the true anal glands of other 

 Carnivores. The orifices of these are situated on each side of 

 the anal sac close to the inner margin of the lateral folds. The 

 glands themselves are a pair of large muscular sacs filled with 

 dark-coloured, strongly smelling, oily fluid which escapes to the 

 exterior through the orifices above described. These glands 

 are quite different from the smaller glands of the anal sac 

 in their size, their saccular character, and the nature of their 

 secretion. 



The character of the anal glands in this Sudanese female 

 example of Ariela fasciata explains much that was puzzling in 

 Chatin's description of the glands in a male of the species from 

 South Africa. As has been already stated, Chatin assigned to 

 that species five pairs of anal glands opening by as many orifices 

 in folds upon the surface of the anal scent-pouch. These glands 

 he named the anterior, the lateral, the intermediate, the lateral 

 posterior, and the median posterior. It is not easy to homologize 

 all of these precisely with the glands I have described in the 

 female. But judging from their position and size, the lateral 

 glands appear to be the true anal glands, the median posterior 

 are evidently those that I have called the upper supra-anal, 

 while the intermediate and anterior probably correspond respect- 

 ively to the lower supra-anal and the lateral, the lateral portions 

 being undifferentiated in the female. 



The principal difference, however, between the glands of the 

 two animals consists in this : — In the female the secondarily 

 specialised glands appear to be ordinary sebaceous or follicular 

 glands but little modified and quite distinct from the true anal 

 glands, whereas in the male they have been modified so as to 

 resemble approximately the true anal glands — that is to say, each 

 consists of a wall of secreting cells surrounding a sac or hollow for 

 storing the secretion, which is similar in nature to that of the 

 anal glands in being brown in colour and foetid in odour. This 

 secondarily acquired similarity — an exceedingly interesting fact — 

 seems to have misled Mivart into thinking that the two normal 

 anal glands present in all ^luroid Carnivores had become broken 

 up, as it were, in the male Ariela fascinta into the five pairs of 

 glands described by Chatin (Ann. Sci. Nat. (5) xix. pp. 89-93, 

 pi. iv. figs. 29- 30, 1874). 



The existence of a pair of saccular anal glands in Suricata was, 

 as Mivart states, recorded by Daubenton. To this Mivart adds : — 

 " The anus opens into the middle of a very deep fossa, deeper than 

 that of Bdeogale and like that of Crossarcluis. ... I strongly^ 



