17 Cuvier's name for P. musanga.—R. A. S.
18 The Tipari of Bengal.—R. A. S.
[NO. 234. PARADOXURUS (PAGUMA) LANIGER.]
HABITAT.—Thibet.
This requires further investigation. Gray says: "This species is only known from a skin without any skull, and in a very bad state."
P. strictus, quadriscriptus and prehensilis are three species alluded to by Gray as requiring further examination, but probably Jerdon is right in considering them as varieties of P. musanga.
A specimen with very large canines has been reported from the Andaman Islands (P. Tytleri?) in addition to these. Gray enumerates as an Indian species P. nigrifrons, which is likely to be a variety of P. musanga; it was described from a single specimen. The dorsal streaks and spots were absent, but then he says the animal had been in confinement, and, as I have said before, this tends to make the dark parts disappear.
This is a very curious animal, which, like the panda and the linsang, at first misled naturalists in assigning it a place. It was formerly classed with the racoons, which it superficially resembles; and, as Jerdon remarks, it may be considered as a sort of link between the plantigrade and digitigrade carnivora. The skeleton however is similar to that of the musangs as regards the great number (thirty-four) of the caudal vertebræ, but the bones of the feet have a more plantigrade character; the skull resembles that of a badger; the head is conical, with a large brain-case and acute turned-up nose; the orbit of the skull is imperfect, only defined by a prominence above; the ears are pencilled or tufted; the tail is very long, muscular and prehensile—although this was doubted by F. Cuvier, but it is now a well-known fact—and in climbing trees it is much assisted by the tail; the teeth are thirty-six in all; canines stout, upper ones long; grinders small and far apart; of the false grinders, the first and second are conical, the third compressed; the flesh-tooth is triangular, and as broad as long; the tubercular grinders are smaller than the flesh-tooth, the first triangular, the hinder cylindrical and smaller still; toes five in each foot, with powerful semi-retractile claws.
[NO. 235. ARCTICTIS BINTURONG.]
The Binturong (Jerdon's No. 126).