HEEPESTES ALBICAUDA. 
193 
present time the mongoose is frequently tamed and kept in the houses of the 
Egyptians to protect them from rats and snakes. 
HeRPESTES ALBICAUDA, F. Cuv. 
Herpestes alhicaudus, Cuvier, Eegne Anim. ed. 2, 1829, vol. i. p. 158. 
Herpestes leucurus, Ehrenb. Symb. Pbys. pi. 12, decas ii. 1832, h. 
Ichneumia albescens, Is. Geoffr. Mag. Zool. 1839, pp. 16 & 35 (descr., not figure). 
Herpestes loempo, Temminck, Esquisses Zool. 1853, p. 93. 
Ichneumia nigricauda, Pucberan, Eev. Mag. Zool. 1855, vii. p. 394. 
Ichneumia abu-wudan, Fitzinger & Heugl. SB. Ak. Wien, liv. i. 1866, p. 561. 
Herpestes [Ichneumia] albicauda, Thomas, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1882, p. 75. 
[Ihis animal has nothing of the weasel-like form of the last species, but is more cat¬ 
like, standing well up on its toes ; the legs are longer, the ears larger, and the fur very 
much softei, with dense under-fur ; the tail is clothed throughout its length with long 
somewhat pendent hair, slightly narrowing distally, with no brush-like terminal tuft. 
Ihe soles of the fore feet are naked only to the base of the thumb, and the hind feet 
only to the base of the first toe, the hair on the back of the tarsus and heel being so 
dense that it forms a sort of cushion. 
The general colour is light grey, washed with black along the dorsal surface, the 
long hairs being broadly tipped with black : the feet are black; the tail at the base 
colouied like the back, but posteriorly the hairs lose the black tips and quickly become 
whitei, those at the extremity being entirely white to the base; the throat and under 
parts are usually rather paler than the upper surface ; the under-fur throughout is dark 
slate-grey at the base and drab-buff terminally. 
In some individuals the tail, instead of becoming white distally, becomes black in 
precisely the same manner; these black-tailed melanic individuals (var. nigricauda) 
show much more brown in the general body-colour throughout. 
In the skull the anterior facial line, to about the middle of the nasals, is very much 
more hoiizontal than the frontal line ; the forehead is flattened ; the zygomata are fairly 
expanded, but aie very much less powerful than in the last species ; the facial portion 
from the back of the orbit to the front of the premaxilla is as long as or longer than 
the cianial portion; the orbit is large, its lower rim lying below the upper edge of the 
zygomatic jrrocess of the s([uamosal; the auditory bullae are fully inflated, and the 
anterior chamber is furnished with numerous small perforations set in a crescent-shaped 
shallow fossa below the meatus. The incisive foramina are twice as long as broad ; the 
maxillae extend backwards to form a distinct post-dental shelf. The carnassial tooth is 
2c 
