FIG. 110. Hyæna.
THE generality of naturalists are of opinion that the perfume called civet, or musk, is furnished only by one species of animals. I have, however, seen two animals that furnish it, which, though they have many essential affinities, both in their external and internal conformations, yet differ in so many characteristics, that there is sufficient reason to consider them as two distinct species. To the first I have continued the original name of Civet, (fig. 111.) and the second, for the sake of distinction, I have called Zibet ([fig. 113]) The civet seems to be the same as that described by the Academy of Sciences; by Caius, in Gesner, page 837, and by Fabius Columna, who has given both the male and female figures in the publication of Faber, which follows that of Hernandes. The zibet appears to be the same animal as M. de la Peyronnie has described under the name of Musk Animal, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for the year 1731. Both differ from the civet in the very same characters; both want the mane, or the long hair, on the back-bone, and both have the tail marked with strong annular streaks. The civet, on the contrary, has a mane, but no rings on the tail. It must, however be acknowledged that our zibet, and the musk animal of M. de la Peyronnie, are not so perfectly similar as to leave no doubt of the identity of their species. The rings on the tail of the zibet are larger than those of the musk animal, and the length of his tail is shorter in proportion to that of his body; but these differences are slight, and appear to be mere accidental varieties, to which the civet must be more subject than any other wild animal, as they are reared and fed like domestic ones in many parts of the Levant and East Indies. Certain it is, that our zibet bears a stronger resemblance to the musk animal than to the civet, and consequently they may be considered as the same species. Nor, indeed, do we mean positively to affirm that civet and zibet are not varieties of the same species, but from their different characteristics there is a strong presumption they really are so.
Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.
