182 CAENIVORA. 



in its upper lialf . The long hairs have brown tips, succeeded by nine alternate, pale 

 yellowish or almost white, and brown bands, of nearly equal width, except the 

 basal band, which belongs to the pale series, and is generally broad. On the base of 

 the tail, the annuli are much broader, but generally of the same number as on the 

 body, according to the age of the individual. The upper surface of the head is 

 generally suffused with rufous brown, as are also the lower parts of the legs. The 

 centre of the hind foot is niide to the heel. 



Inches. 



Length of body and head ......... 18"20 



„ of tail without hair ........ 14'20 



„ „ with hair 16-50 



The skull of S. pcMidus agrees exactly with skulls sent by Hodgson to the 

 British Museum as examples of S. nyula. The skulls of pale-coloured and those 

 of more ferruginous skins all so agree with each other that they do not afford any 

 grotmds of separation, although the more dusky examples from Bengal have been 

 regarded as S. malacceiisis, F. Cuv. The teeth are the same in all. The two 

 processes beliind the orbit never unite until the animal is fuUy adult, and until 

 the other sutures of the skull have disappeared by a normal synostosis, i. e., 

 imtil the skull has ceased to grow. The last lower molar has two anterior and one 

 posterior cusp, with the tendency to form a cusp between the former two. This 

 species is distributed over India from the Punjab and Sindh southwards to Ceylon, 

 and eastwards through Assam and the Malayan peninsula from whence it has 

 been sent by Cantor. 



I have adopted Wagner's name JS. paUklus for this species in preference to 

 H. griseus, as this latter name originally included an African species. The term 

 S. malaccensis is also objectionable, because it is misleading as to the geographical 

 distribution of the species, and moreover it has been but seldom recognised, and 

 II. nyula likewise is unsuitable from the circumstance that it is a native term appli- 

 calDle to Indian Mungooses generally. 



Herpestes fekrtjgineus, Blanford. Plate VIII, figs. 11 & 12. 



Ili'qjesfes fermgineus, Blanford, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 187-i, p. 661, pi. Ixxxi. 



This Mungoose closely resembles rufous examples of the previous species, 

 H. pallkhts, and had it not been for certain characters presented by the skull, I 

 should have been disposed to regard the two as identical; but it may be that 

 even those supposed, distinctive, cranial features will be satisfactorily explained if a 

 larger series of skulls of all ages were examined. The characters in which it 

 difi'ers most from E. pallidus are the greater breadth of the post-orbital contraction 

 of the frontals, the shorter and broader muzzle, and more particularly the greater 

 breadth and shortness of the posterior or nasal portion of the palate. The orbit, 

 judging from the growth of the skull, is in aU probabihty perfect in the adult' 

 The last lower molar has the same character as in H. pallidus. The annulation 



