48 On the Civet of the continent of India. 



and skins to England, is as follows : — Iron grey Civet, with 

 body marked or unmarked, with lateral and anteal surfaces 

 of the neck conspicuously quadricinctate, with black and 

 white, the black prevailing, and black tail furnished with 6 

 narrow perfect white rings. Snout to rump 32-3 inches; 

 tail 19 ; mean height 14 to 15. It seems to me however 

 that the specific characters of Civetta and of Zibetha must 

 be amended before one set can be assigned to V. orientalis 

 (Potius melanurus) at once precise and accurate. 



Without further preface I will proceed now to a full 

 description of a fine male specimen of our animal which 

 I obtained in our valley in March, 1836, thereafter noticing 

 contradistinctively a specimen from Dorjiling, in which the 

 Civet-like markings of the body, so faint in the former, are 

 most striking. 



The general colour of our animal, which is an old male, is 

 iron grey, more or less fulvescerrt and sordid. Below the 

 belly and inside of the limbs close to it are hoary 

 white. Limbs nearly to the body brown, black, or deep 

 sooty ; whole inferior surface of the head and throat with 

 the margins of the gape and bridge of the nose, the same : 

 mystaceal region and tip of chin hoary like the belly ; ears 

 outside black for the most part, but becoming dusky and 

 even grey towards tips ; lining of the ears hoary grey : head 

 above and laterally void of marks, and coloured like the 

 body, but paler : no mark under the eye : sides and front of 

 the neck occupied by four conspicuous alternating black and 

 white bands, which proceeding from behind the ears first 

 run longitudinally towards the shoulders, and then suddenly 

 turn down to gird the front of the neck, which they entirely 

 embrace, and which from the superior breadth of the inner 

 dark zone is rather black than white. Within (that is 

 nearer to the head) this large dark zone is a semblance of a 

 third dark one, which however rather resembles horns put 

 off towards the ears from the dark inferior surface of 



