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Show 1882.] AFRICAN MUNGOOSES. 77 The present rather peculiar species has always, in its white-tailed form, been recognized as the type of a distinct genus or subgenus, for which Geoffroy proposed the name of Ichneumia. No one, however, ever seems to have noticed that the black-tailed II. loempo, Temm., is not even specifically distinct from the typical form, and therefore, of course, possesses all its more important structural characters. H. albicaucla and //. loempo cannot even be separated as varieties ; for the only difference between them, namely the colour of the tail, seems to be purely an individual variation. It is true that for the most part specimens from West Africa, representing II. loempo, have black tails, and those from East Africa white tails ; but I have seen too many exceptions to this rule to feel justified in regarding the two forms as varietally distinct. Thus there is in the Berlin Museum a specimen from Accra, on the Gold Coast, which has a regular white tail, just as in the typical II. albicauda; and, on the other hand, black-tailed specimens from East Africa are by no means rare. Moreover, in the British Museum we have two specimens from the Bogos country, Abyssinia, received together, and the skulls of which are quite identical, one of which has a black loempo-like tail, and the other has a tail with quite as much white on it as in average albicauda. W e thus see that the presence or absence of a white tip to the tail-hairs is a character upon which no specific distinction can be founded ; and, in fact, it would rather seem that the white tail is the result of a desert life, specimens from sandy districts having, as a rule, white, and those from forest regions, black tails. Ichneumia albescens, I. Geoff., appears to be simply a pale form of this species, in which the longer hairs are fewer in number, so that the grey underfur shows more on the surface, and thus gives a generally paler colour than usual. I. nigricauda, Puch., seems to be quite identical with this species, representing the usual West-African black-tailed form. With regard to Bdeogale nigripes, Puch., from the Gaboon, I have already mentioned m y suspicion that it has accidentally lost the first toes on all four feet; and it seems very possible that it is really only a white-tailed specimen of this species, and not a Bdeogale at all. The original description would exactly fit the Accra white-tailed specimen already referred to ; and that i*s certainly a true Herpestes, as the fifth toes are present on all the feet1. Of all the Mungooses, H. albicauda seems to be the most nearly allied to the true Bdeogale, strongly resembling the species of that genus in general colour, quality of fur, length and bushiness of tail, hairiness of tarsus, proportionally large size of the last molar, and most of all in the presence of the median middle external cusp to the last lower molar, a character in which Bdeogale differs from all other 1 Since writing the above I have received a letter from Prof. Barboza du Bocage, in which he informs m e that the specimen from Aiigola, referred by him (P. Z. S. 1865, p. 402) to Bd. nigripes, proves on a closer examination to possess minute 1st claws to the fore feet, thus strongly confirming m y previous opinion about that animal. |