Vison.—Head elongate, narrow; feet slightly hairy; pads exposed; body rather slender; under-side same colour as upper.
Gymnopus.—Head elongate, narrow; feet rather naked, bald beneath, between, and rather behind the pads; toes largely webbed; soles hairy behind; body slender.
It is doubtful whether these distinctions are of sufficient importance to warrant so much subdivision; and unnecessary multiplication of genera is a thing to be avoided as much as possible.
A more or less arboreal group of larger size, and possibly less sanguinary habits than the weasels, although in this respect I do not think there is much difference. The tail is longer, though not so long as the head and body, and it is bushy; the fur is fine and in general highly prized; the dentition differs from the typical Mustela in having four more teeth and an additional false molar on either side in each jaw; and the inner side of the carnassial or flesh tooth has a tubercle which is not present in the weasels; head elongate; feet very hairy; space between the pads hairy, often covering them from sight, except in the case of Martes flavigula, of which the soles are nude.
[NO. 177. MARTES FLAVIGULA.]
The White-cheeked Marten (Jerdon's No. 96).
NATIVE NAMES.—Mal-sampra, Nepalese; Tuturala in Kumaon; Kusiah in Sirmoor; Huniah or Aniar, Bhotia; Sakku, Lepcha.
HABITAT.—Nepal, Thibet, Kumaon, Gurhwal, Sirmoor, Assam, Burmah, Ceylon.
DESCRIPTION.—Glossy blackish brown, with the throat and breast yellow; the chin and lower parts white, from which I have preferred to call it after Pennant "the White-cheeked Marten" instead of the "yellow-throated," this characteristic belonging also to some other species. The fur seems to vary a good deal. Jerdon says of it: "The body is at times dirty brownish or chestnut brown, or brown mixed with grey, and the middle of the back is sometimes paler than the rest, or the same tint as the sides of the body. In some the top of the head is pale brown, but it is edged by a dark peripheral line, and in some there are one or more irregular dark spots between the fore-limbs."
Blyth writes of the Burmese specimens that they are "similar to the Himalayan, but differing from the Malayan race—found also in Formosa—by having much longer fur, and a wholly black cap instead of a brown cap with a black periphery." The soles are nude.