1847.] On the Tibetan Badger. 



from heel to end of the nails, 4, the longest claw or nail, \\, the ear 

 1}, the longest hair of the body, .4}. The aspect is entirely that of a 

 )one:-tailed Backer, with somewhat smaller head and longer finer fur 

 than usual. The small head is conico-depressed with remote ears and 

 eyes, and sharp elongated face. The muzzle or nude extremity of the 

 nose is clearly defined, rounded, prolonged beyond the teeth, and has 

 an abrupt oblique termination in front. The oval nostrils are opened 

 entirely to the front, their lateral prolongation being merely linear and 

 very much curved. The lips are thin and almost void of moustaches ; 

 and there is a still fainter indication of the tufts proper to the cheeks, 

 chin, and eyebrows. The small pig-like eyes are situated midway 

 between the ears and tip of the snout. The ears are oval, well deve- 

 loped and tending to a point. The helix is unfissured and the interior 

 of the ears void of membranous processes, but hid with hair which 

 amply covers these organs inside and out and ends in a full diffused, 

 yet somewhat pointed, tuft. The neck and body are rather elongated 

 yet full, and appear even heavy from the copiousness, length and free 

 set of the double pelage. The limbs are low, stout and suited only to 

 slow action on the ground, with the heel very slightly raised, but 

 admirably fitted for digging ; pentadactylous before and behind : the 

 hands larger and stonger than the feet, and furnished with huge fosso- 

 rial claws more than doubly larger than those of the hind extremities. 

 The palm is entirely nude to the wrist, save only a small central tuft of 

 wool-like hair, and the inferior surface of the digits is likewise quite 

 nude. The palm is not a full soft mass nearly enveloping the digits 

 and hardly distinguishable into balls or pads, as in the Bears and 

 Bear-badgers (Ursitax), but is hard, spare of flesh, and distinctly 

 divided into pads which take in only the bases of the four fingers ; form 

 a crescented series of irregular shape and diminishing in size from the 

 outside to the inside of the foot. The 5th digit or thumb has no basal 

 pad, it being short and small. The corpal pad is void, large and placed 

 on the exterior side of the palm at its base. The fingers, of medial 

 length and stout, are united as far forward as the posteal edge of 

 the terminal pads by a strong membrane not susceptible of much 

 expansion. Their pads form a curvate regular series to the front, 

 like the basal tier abovenoticed, the two central fingers being nearly 

 equal and the two laterals also, interse. . Tbe small feeble thumb 



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