80 



DESCRIPTION OF THREE 



The Muchahha, as already noticed, is the Paradoxurus Hirsutus : the 

 Catarse or Catds, the Viverra Rasse vel Indica ; and by these, the popular 

 names, the animals are described in the ensuing memoranda for the greater 

 part of which I am indebted to Dr, Campbell. 



The scull of the Catas throughout very considerably compressed and eleva- 

 ted in comparison of that of the Muchahha, the one bearing in its general form 

 the same resemblance to the cranium of the spaniels as the other does to the 

 scull of the mastiffs. This comparison refers more particularly to the 

 cerebral portion of the heads. In other words, the parietes of the C^torsfi 

 shelve insensibly towards each other, and are surmounted by very large 

 longitudinal and transverse cristse ; whilst those of the MMc/M&^ct have an 

 ample swell, with ridges far less developed. The articulation of the jaws 

 is somewhat deeper in Catds than in 31uclmbba ; the coronoid processes 

 considerably larger and more inclined in the latter than in the former. 

 The form of the zygomatic arches and of the orbits, and the proportional 

 length of the frontal and nasal bones, are pretty much the same in 

 both : but the contour of the latter bones is materially different in the 

 one and the other animal. In the Muchahha the frontal and facial line, 

 from tlie commencement of the longitudinal crista to the end of the nose, 

 is straight in its length ; whilst, in the Catarse, it is arched: and, if these 

 parts be regarded in reference to their transverse outline, in the Catarse 

 they present a strong and perfect convexity throughout — in the Muchahha, 

 a level, depressed along the mesial attachment into a groove which occupies 

 the whole extent of the nasal bones and the anterior half of the os frontis. 

 The receptacles of the auditory apparatus are three times as large in the 

 Catarse as in the 3Tuchahha : but those containing the olfactory organs are 

 somewhat larger, though by no means compensably so, in the latter than in 

 the former scull. The infra-orbitar foramen is twice as great in the Mu- 

 chahha as in the Catarse, corresponding to the superior size of the whiskers 

 in that animal. The teeth have in both sculls the same positions, forms, 



