104 CARNIVORA. 
Genus HERPESTES, Illiger’. 
Dentition :-—I. 2 ee : Pam eg 9, M. = é In existing forms theinner 
cusp of the lower ee is well ieee and its talon short. 
m. 2 is short, with three main cusps; pm. 4 has a cusp on its poste- 
rior cutting-edge. Fossil forms seem to indicate a complete tran- 
sition from Vwerra to Herpestes. 
Herpestes minimus (Filhol’). 
Syn. Viverra minima, Filhol *. 
Hab. France. 
M. 1372. The greater portion of the right ramus of the mandible, 
(fig.) containing all the cheek-teeth, and showing the broken 
base of the canine; from the Upper Eocene of Caylux 
(Tarn-et-Garonne), France. This specimen, which is 
represented in the accompanying woodcut (fig. 13), on an 
Fig. 13. 















Herpestes minimus.—Part of the right ramus of the mandible ; 
from the Upper Eocene of Caylux. 3. 
enlarged scale, appears to agree exactly with the less per- 
fect specimen figured by Filhol in the Ann. Sci. Géol. 
vol. vill. pl. xx. figs. 334, 336, under the name of Viverra 
minima, The first premolar is present, and of compara- 
tively large size; and there is a large inner cusp to the 
carnassial. The space occupied by the six cheek-teeth 
measures 0,022, or the same as in the type specimen. 
The present specimen is very slightly larger than the 
mandible of the existing Indian Herpestes nipalensis, but is 
otherwise very similar. The only points of difference, 
indeed, between the two are that m. 2 is relatively larger in 
the fossil, that the cusp on the posterior cutting-edge of 
pm. 4 is placed on the median line, instead of to the outer 
? Prodromus Syst. Mamm. p. 185 (1811). 
? Ann. Sci. Géol. vol. vii. art. 7, p. 150 (1876), Viverra. 
3 Loc. cit. 

