PABADOXUEirS MUSAKOA. 127 



and Malabar coast, where it is popularly called the Toddy-cat, in conse- 

 CLuence of its supposed fondness for the juice of the palm (Tari, Ti.., toddy, 

 anglice), a fact which appears of general acceptation both in IncRa and 

 and Ceylon (where it is called the palm, cat), and which appears to have 

 some foundation. Kelaart says it, " is a well established fact that it is a 

 consumer of palm- toddy." It lives much on trees, especially on the Palmyra 

 and cocoa-nut palms, and is often found to have taken up its residence in 

 the thick thatched roofs of native houses. I found a large colony of them 

 established among the rafters of my own house at Tellicherry. It also 

 occasionally is found in dry drains, outhouses, and other places of shelter. 

 It is quite nocturnal, issuing forth at dark, and living by preference on 

 animal food, rats, lizards, small birds, poultry and eggs ; but it also freely 

 partakes of vegetable food, fruit and insects. In confinement it wOl eat 

 plantains, boiled rice, bread and milk, ghee, &c. Colonel Sykes mentions 

 that it is very fond of cockroaches. Now and then it will commit depreda- 

 tions in some poultry yard, and I have often known them taken in traps 

 baited with a pigeon or a chicken. In the South of India it is very often 

 tamed, and becomes quite domestic, and even affectionate in its manners. 

 One I saw, many years ago, at Trichinopoly went about quite at large, 

 and late every night used to work itself under the pillow of its owner, 

 roll itself up into a ball, with its tail coiled round its body, and sleep till 

 a late hour of the day. It hunted for rats, shrews, and house lizards. 

 Their activity in climbing is very great, and they used to ascend and des- 

 cend my house at one of the corners 6f the building in a most surprising 

 manner. 



One, 20 inches long, examined by Kelaart, had the small intestines 5 

 feet 4 inches long, the large do., 9 inches ; ccecum fths ; liver with seven 

 lobes, &c., &c. 



Hodgson has described several new species lately, of which P. strictus 

 and P. quadriscnptus appear to be merely varieties of color of P. 

 musanga. They are figured at plates 47 and 48, of the Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 for 1856. Blyth described the skull of one -from the Andaman islands, 

 which had peculiarly large canines. It may possibly be the species lately 

 described by Colonel Tytler, Joum. As. Soc. for 1865, and named after 

 himself, Paradoxurus Tytleri. Prom the description, it is evidently nearly 

 related to P. musanga. 



The next species were formerly classed under the genus Paguma, Gray, 

 differing somewhat from Paradoxurus in the form of some of the teeth. 



