MYDAUS MELICEPS. 
an opportunity of examining a very interesting subject, prepared by Mr. Hunter 
himself, representing tbe anal-glands of a species of Mephitis, and their situation 
relatively to the rectum. This forms part of a very instructive series, exhibiting the 
anal-glands and follicules of various animals of this family, by which a thick fluid is 
secreted, and which comprises both the Viverra Zibetha, which furnishes the odori- 
ferous civet, and the Mephitis and Mydaus, whose intolerably fetid exhalations 
prevent the approach of other animals. 
I have represented on the Plate of Illustrations a comparative view of the head, 
the teeth, the claws, and the anal-glands of the Mydaus meliceps from Java, and of 
a species of Mephitis, which genus has hitherto been found only in America. To the 
most striking differences which have already been cited from the description of 
Mr. F. Cuvier, it may be proper to add, that the front teeth of Mephitis, in both 
jaws, are very different from those of Mydaus. Their peculiarities in the latter 
have already been detailed in the generic description; those of Mephitis, in the 
upper jaw, are considerably longer and narrower, and in the lower jaw they have a 
different arrangement, the tooth on each side, next the exterior tooth, being removed 
somewhat interiorly from the general series. The canine teeth in Mydaus are small, 
compressed, and slightly curved: in Mephitis they are long, erect, and sharp, 
resembling these teeth in Canis, Mustek, and Felis. In the form of the grinders 
there is a greater resemblance; but the third in the lower jaw, the carnivorous tooth 
of Mr. Cuvier, exhibits some peculiarities in Mydaus which do not exist in Mephitis. 
The claws in Mydaus are slightly curved, slender, narrow, both in a vertical and 
horizontal direction, and formed for a very delicate manner of perforating the 
ground : in Mephitis they are more suddenly curved and vertically compressed, and 
likewise proportionally shorter. In Mephitis the lobes of the ear, though short, 
appear externally covered with very delicate fur : in Mydaus they are nearly con- 
cealed from view by the long hairs which cover the neck, and sides of the head. 
From the preceding details which exhibit those characters of Mydaus, by which 
it is entitled to be considered a distinct genus, its situation in a natural arrangement 
does likewise appear. If it differ from Mephitis in those pomts which have been 
clearly brought into view, particularly in the form of the head and body, in the size 
and structure of the tail, and in some peculiarities of the front teeth and claws, it 
agrees with that genus in the structure of the glands, on winch the fetid odour, 
peculiar to both, depends, and in the system of dentition, as far as relates to the 
grinders generally. In the form of the head and snout, our animal so strikingly 
resembles the Badger, that Mr. Cuvier has proposed, for specific distinction, the 
name of Meliceps. But it has still other pomts of affinity to Meles. It agrees with 
that animal in the form of the external ear, and its claws more closely resemble those 
of a Badger, than those of any other aiaimal with which I have had an opportunity 
of comparing it I am unable to determine the affinity between Mydaus and Meles, 
