OCR Text |
Show 882.] PROF. ST.-GEORGE MIVART ON THE ALUROIDEA. 193 (21) Snout very slender. (22) Zygomata very slender. (23) Median cerebellar prominence in skull very marked. (24) Canines very small. (25) Wide diastemata between ^-z, ~^, p^|. /o£\ M. 1&2 vi P. 3&4- i (2°) W7T&2 very llke PT7&Ii n shaPe« By characters 21-26 the Euplerina differ from all the other Viverrida. In reviewing the Viverrida so far, we have found what seem to be curious modifications of one and another section of the family. Thus, in Cynogale we seem to have a Paradoxure specially adapted for an aquatic and fish-catching life-a sort of Viverrine Otter with a singular superficial resemblance to Potamogale. In Arctictis, on the other hand, we have a Paradoxure specially arboreal, and with teeth so little carnivorous that, but for Arctogale, we might hesitate to assign it a close connexion with Paradoxurus. Both are Asiatic forms; and Asia is the special home of the Viverrine subfamily of Viverrid . The special home of the Herpestine subfamily is Africa. Of the Viverrine animals of Madagascar yet noticed, we have the Fossa and Rasse as examples of the Viverrina ; and we have the singular little intermediate group of Galidictina and the very exceptional Euplerina. While the most carnivorous Viverrine yet here considered (Nandinia) is African, the most insectivorous is from Madagascar, where we might expect to find the most anomalous Mammalian forms. But if I a m right in a suspicion I have already expressed, Madagascar is yet more remarkable as presenting the most exceptional development of the Herpestine root of the Viverrida ; for it seems to m e by no means impossible that Cryptoprocta may be a very diverging root-form more or less allied to Crossarchus and Herpestes. M y examination of the skeleton of Cryptoprocta has left no doubt upon m y mind that, so far as it is concerned, it is an altogether Viverrine, and not at all a Feline, animal. I cannot, therefore, see m y way at present to regarding it as the type of a distinct family, although when its soft parts have been described it may turn, out to merit that distinction. Whatever its ancestral affinities m ay have been, it has clearly attained the rank of a subfamily; and at first I was inclined to regard it (as had been suggested by P. Gervais1) as a form allied to, and a sort of exaggeration of, the African genus Nandinia; but the only portion of its visceral anatomy yet known to m e seems to point to another affinity, namely to that I have just indicated. It will, I suspect, be found to have Cowper's glands, a Viverrine prostate gland, and a Viverrine brain, but no scent-gland-no pouch or glandular grooves just behind the genital aperture. The situation of its anal opening in the midst of a fossa, as described by M r . Bennett2, is unlike the Viverrina and Galidic- 1 Hist. Nat. des Mammif. vol. ii. p. 41. 2 Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. i. p. 137. PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1882, No. XIII. 13 |