NEW GENUS OF CARNIVORA. 



63 



in size ; and gradated upon a different principle — the outermost being 

 the stoutest, and the rest, gradually but trivially diminished in strength 

 towards the inmost. The nails of the anterior extremities are typically 

 fossorial, sub-arched, shallow, stout, obtuse, obliquely compressed with 

 broad convex backs, and a sharpened edge below. 



The feet and hands of Ursitaxus are precisely similar to the same 

 organs in the Bears, except that the digit answering to the thumb is rather 

 remote in our animal — not so in Ursus — and that the interval between 

 the terminal balls of the digits and their confusion with the palmary mass 

 is nude in Ursitaxus— clad with soft hair in the Bears. 



The anal glands of the Ursitax differ considerably from those of the 

 Badger, agreeing point by point with the same organ in Mydaus (Horsfield), 

 save only that the excretory ducts are rather longer in our animal and have 

 their termination in the rectum rather nearer to its orifice and to one 

 another. The tongue of the Ursitax resembles that of the Badger, being 

 wholly covered with small papillae, neither horny nor aculeated backwards. 

 The covering of our animal consists of harsh hair only, and that very 

 scantily furnished. It is about two inches in utmost length, straight and 

 adpressed, sufficient in quantity to hide the skin upon the superior aspect 

 only of the head, neck and body ; the face, neck and body below, with the 

 limbs internally, being partially nude. The colours are dirty yellow and 

 black, clearly defined by a line passing from the brows along the flanks to 

 the edges of the tail, and leaving all above it of the former — below it, of the 

 latter, hue. The dirty tinge of the yellow upon the superior parts is caused 

 by an admixture of yellow and black hairs, of which the former are more 

 abundant and longer too than the latter, but both of similar harsh character. 

 The tail, 5 inches long and scarcely reaching to the middle of the buttocks, 

 is cylindrico-tapered and covered with hair like the back, the point being 

 fine and a little recurved. 



