1 36 MR. R. I. POCOCK ON EXTERNAL 



The ctaivs are long, projecting, not, or scarcely at all, retractile, 

 and quite unprotected by sheaths of hairy skin. 



The hind foot (text-fig. 2, B) differs correspondingly from that 

 of V. zibetha, the area at the sides and in front of the plantar pad 

 being naked and the pollical lobe of the plantar pad forming a 

 distinct excrescence. Behind it there is a small backwardly 

 directed area of naked skin. The hallux is situated a little more 

 forward, and its digital pad is larger. In addition, however, there 

 is a distinct flat, bilobed, sometimes divided, naked pad situated 

 some little distance behind (above) the plantar pad, and repre- 

 senting the two streaks of naked skin traversing the underside 

 of the metatarsus in Genetta and Poiana and the single small spot 

 on that of Fossa *. 



The Feet of Viverricula malaccensis and V. rasse. 



I have seen no fresh specimens of V. malaccensis, but judging 

 from dried skins the feet resemble those of Viverra zibetha in 

 most respects. The pollex and hallux nevertheless, as noticed 

 by previous writers, are considerably higher up ; and I can find 

 no trace of lobes of skin on the fore paw similar to those pro- 

 tecting the claws in V. zibetha. Hodgson (Calcutta Journ. Sci. 

 ii. 1842, pi. i.) gave a sketch of the underside of the hind foot and 

 drew attention to the presence of a small naked spot on the side 

 of the plantar pad. This is the hallucal lobe of that pad. Its 

 development seems to be variable, but in no case is it distinctive 

 of this Civet, as the manner of its citation by Hodgson, Gray, and 

 Mivart suggests. 



In the specimen figured by Hodgson, and in the skins above 

 mentioned, the area between the plantar and digital pads was 

 thickly hairy ; but in a spirit-preserved example in the British 

 Museum, ticketed S.E. Java (H. 0. Forbes), and therefore 

 belonging to the species, or race, identified as V. rasse Horsf . by 

 Bonhote t, the greater part of this area is naked, the hair being 

 restricted to a triangular patch on the web between the 3rd and 

 4th digits and to somewhat similar patches extending backwards 

 from the edge of the webs joining the 2nd and 5th digits to the 

 3rd and 4th respectively. The skin at the sides of the plantar 

 pads and back to the digital pad of the pollex and hallux is also 

 naked, and a narrow strip of naked skin runs from the carpal 

 pad to the digital pad of the pollex (text-fig. 3, A, B). 



The Feet of Genetta. 



These have been often described but not quite so fully as 

 might be. Mivart's figure and description of the feet of the 

 species he identified as G. tigrina (P. Z. S. 1882, p. 152, fig. 3) 



* A peculiarity in the hind foot of Fossa is the upward migration of the hallucal 

 elejni-nt of the plantar pad in company with the hallux. This and the little 

 metatarsal pad constitute " the two bald places " mentioned by Mivart. 

 Ann. Mag. Nat, Hist. 1898, i. p. 121. 



