1888.] W. L. Sclater — Bemarks on Paradoxurus. 125 



The fur of the specimen exhibited has the same grizzled appear- 

 ance mentioned by Mr. Blanford in his description, due to a subterminal 

 band of gray on each individual hair, but it wants the white tip to the 

 tail which is such a conspicuous feature in the coloured plate of Mr. 

 Blanford's memoir on Paradoxurus (P. Z. S. 1885, pi, XLIX). 



Mr. Gray in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1864 

 p. 538, described a new species of Paradoxurus from a single skull in 

 the British Museum ; this skull differed from all other Paradoxurus 

 skulls in the very much larger size of the teeth, especially of the 3rd 

 upper premolar, which is provided with a distinct cingulum and a rudi- 

 mentary inner lobe, the skull had no skin attached to it, and the locality 

 was unknown. 



In examining the specimens of Paradoxurus in the collection of 

 the Indian Museum, I found three skalls which were undoubtedly skulls 

 of Paradoxurus macrodus of Gray ; the skulls in question had been 

 extracted from a series of three mounted specimens from Malacca pre- 

 sented to the Asiatic Society in 1843 by Messrs. Frith and Lindstedt. 



I have carefully examined the stuffed specimens to which the above 

 skulls belong, and can see absolutely no character by which they could 

 be distinguished from the ordinary Paradoxurus hermaphroditus or musanga 

 as it occurs near Calcutta. However the species can easily be distin- 

 guished from P. musanga by its skull, and will therefore stand, and the 

 addition to our knowledge is the locality whence it comes, i. e., Malacca. 

 The third point is the question of the specific identity of the 

 Burmese and Indian forms of Palm cat. Blyth and Jerdon only allow 

 one species, i. e., Paradoxurus musanga, but Mr. Blanford in his paper 

 quoted above, has separated P. musanga into two species (a) P. herma- 

 phroditus from Burma, Siam, Malayia, Lower Bengal, Nepal and Sikkim 

 distinguished by its striped back, grey frontal band, even fur and by 

 certain tooth measurements. (h) P. niger from the peninsular of 

 India and Ceylon, distinguished by its unstriped back, ragged fur> 

 absence of frontal bend and by the tooth characters. 



After examining the specimens in the Museum here I have come to 

 the conclusion that it is quite impossible to separate the two forms ; 

 there are in the Museum specimens from Rangoon resembling P. niger 

 in having an unstriped back ; there are specimens having the teeth of 

 P. niger combined with the striped back of P. hermaphroditus, in fact 

 not one of the characters enumerated by Mr. Blanford are constant, as 

 indeed he himself says, no one can have no choice but in following the 

 footsteps of Blyth and Jerdon in regarding the two forms of Palm cat 

 as merely varieties of one species Paradoxurus hermaphroditus, Pall. 

 ( = P. musanga, Raffles.) 



