VIVERRA CIVETTA. 



53 



which has a strong musky smell. The gland when cut into seems as 

 if injected with a firm wax 1 . 



This animal comes nearer to the hyama than any that I know. 



In one at Mr. Brookes's 2 [the anatomy was] exactly the same ; it had 

 an elliptical pupil with the long axis turned upwards and downwards, 

 similar to that in the cat. 



[The Genette (Vivetra Genetta, Linn.).] 

 In one sent me by Mr. Jennings, which was a male, I observed a 

 dark line of hair arising from the head just above and behind the ears 

 and passing along the side of the neck, and a little downwards, towards 

 the side of the shoulder. There was a dark place on the side of the 

 neck under the ear. The lower surface of the neck was spotted. 



Another of the very same kind [probably the nearly allied Viverra 

 tigrina, Schreb.] was sent home from the Cape of Good Hope to Mr. 

 Aiton at Kew, who gave it to me. 



Of the Male parts. — The external appearances are as follows : — Pretty 

 close to the scrotum is a protuberance which is not pendukms, and which 

 is covered with short hair. Immediately before the scrotum is a pretty 

 considerable rising, as it were coming gradually out of the pubis ; it is 

 covered with hair, which becomes shorter towards its summit. In the 

 most prominent edge of this rising, and in the direction of the body, 

 there is a slit of above an inch long, which divides it into two halves, a 

 right and a left : the sides of this shit are covered with a cuticle and 

 some hairs. At the anterior end of this tumour is the orifice of the 

 preputium, which is turned a little backward, and just within lies the 

 glans penis, which is also bent downward and a little backward, but 

 not so much so as in the lion or cat 3 . 



The Civet [Viverra Civetta, Schreb.]. 

 This is one of the links of gradation from the lion. It appears to be 

 the same with the genette, only differing in size. The head is very 

 much in the direction of the neck, and there is almost a gradual increase 

 of size from the nose to the shoulders, the body then becoming more so 

 to the hips ; it is pretty long. The legs are short : the hind-legs rather 

 the largest. The hair is of two kinds, a soft and a coarse. The coarse 

 is in considerable quantity, the soft not so much so as it is in many 



1 [Hunt. Prep. No. 2797.] 



2 [A dealer in rare animals, father of Joshua Brookes, F.L.S., lecturer on Anatomy 

 and founder of a considerable museum of Human and Comparative Anatomy, which 

 was dispersed by auction.] 



3 [Hunt. Prep. No. 2514.] 



