795 



On a new Organ in the Genus Moschus. By B. H. Hodgson, Esq. 

 Resident at the Court of Nepal, 



That accomplished naturalist, Mr. Gray, gave, five years ago, in the 

 Zoological Journal, some observations on the Genus Moschus of Linn, 

 in the course of which, after remarking that the great Swede's genus 

 was characterised by himself merely by the absence of horns, Mr. 

 Gray suggested some further marks of distinction for the genus. 

 Mr. Gray divided the genus into three subgenera, and discriminates 

 the Musks proper by their coarse pelage, their simple and clad meta- 

 tarsus, their throats undenuded of hair, and the peculiar pouch in 

 which the musky secretion is found. 



Without staying at present to remark upon these diagnostics, it will 

 readily be allowed, that most of them are not so important, but the 

 addition of another decided and organic one must be hailed with 

 satisfaction ; and I therefore proceed summarily to describe, what the 

 pencil of my painter has made the description of almost superfluous 

 by the accompanying drawings. The very short tail of the proper 

 Musks has often been remarked on ; but it has not been, so far as 

 I am aware, noticed, that this short tail is the seat of a secreting 

 apparatus as marked and peculiar in character, as the celebrated pre- 

 putial pouch. The tail is rather more than an inch long, and nearly as 

 wide at its base as long, trigonal, depressed, and nude, especially 

 on the upper surface, far below it is (like the proximate margin of 

 anus,) partially covered with soft hair. At the very apex, there is a 

 tuft of hair as harsh and quill-like as that of the body generally ! and 

 this tuft only is seen in the living animal, the rest of the tail being hid 

 by the hair of the rump. Raise that hair, however, and you at 

 once perceive the real tail, flat-looking, nude, thick, and greasy, whilst 

 around it the hairs are glued together with a viscid liquor, which 

 has become more or less dried and candied here and there. Look 

 closer, and you discern that the whole tail, especially on its superior 

 surface, consists in fact of a hard solid gland, about three-eighths 

 to half an inch thick, which secretes the viscid humour in question, and 

 gives it oiF slowly, but without intermission, by means of two lateral 

 pores. These pores consist of longitudinal folds of the skin, about 

 as deep as the thickness of the gland, and about three-quarters of 

 an inch long. They are narrowly eliptical in form, possessing thick, 

 rounded, but not very mobile lips or edges, ^nd they resemble in 



