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Show 1882.] PROF. ST.-GEORGE MIVART ON THE ALUROIDEA. 167 The pollex and hallux are very well developed. In its cranial characters Hemigalea resembles Paradoxurus. Its bulla is of the same form, but ankylosed into one piece. The paroccipital is depending, the mastoid very slightly marked ; there i3 an alisphenoid canal; and the condyloid foramen is concealed ; but the hinder opening of the carotid canal is rather more anteriorly situated with respect to the bulla. Its anterior end notches the alisphenoid as always hitherto. The postorbital processes are very small, that of the malar almost obsolete. When the skull is looked at in profile, the dorsum of the muzzle is very concave, and a deepish groove runs antero-posteriorly along the junction of the nasal bones. There is a peculiar depression or notch in the upper alveolar border to receive the apex of p-3. The teeth are the teeth of Paradoxurus ; but tbe outermost upper incisor of each side is more separated from the incisor next it, and *\f" O T> O ~^2 are very well developed. -:- has a distinct internal tubercle ; and there is even a very small one to - . p-5 is very much extended vertically, and is received into the upper alveolar notch just mentioned. Length of head and body about 38"* 1 ; of tail 40"*6. Nothing is said as to any scent-gland in the ' Zoology of the Voyage of the Bonite ;' nor do I find any other notice about it. In a female specimen most kindly presented to me by Mr. A. D. Bartlett, and which I dissected (portions of its anatomy being preserved in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons), I found superficial folds something as in Genetta-two oblique shallow folds extending obliquely upwards and outwards from near the anus to the vicinity of the vagina. The secretion could be squeezed into these folds, just as in the specimen I examined of Genetta tigrina. The tongue exhibited an oval patch of much enlarged but soft papillae on the anterior half of the dorsum of that organ. A very peculiar plate-like enlargement of the radius is to be found on its outer border a little above its styloid precess. Into this are inserted the supinator longus, the pronator radii teres, and, especially, the large pronator quadratus. Hetnigalea agrees with Viverra as to the characters so often referred to, except Nos. 2 (perhaps), 24, 42, 43, 51, 52, and 53. The Binturong (Arctictis), the systematic position of which was for a time so much mistaken, is a good example of the small value of dental characters as guides to the essential affinity of an animal. "Were it not for Arctogale (which tends to bridge over the dental differences between Arctitis and Paradoxurus), the Binturong would be an exception amongst the Viverrida, something as Proteles is amongst the Hyanida. Arctitis may be confidently affirmed to be an aberrant Paradoxure. The animal seems to have been first described by Sir Stamford Raffles (as Viverra binturong) in the Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xiii. p. 253. |