With regard to its fighting propensities, which it probably possesses in common with all its relations—partly from the necessities of the struggle for existence, and partly from pure quarrelsomeness—we may mention Professor Flower’s observation, that there is a “rounded patch in front of each wrist joint,” or “knee,” as the wrist of digitigrade quadrupeds is usually called, just as if the animals were in the constant habit of kneeling. Professor Flower adds in a note:—“Mr. Bartlett informs me that this is the habit both of the Proteles and the Hyænas, especially when fighting. He attributes it, at least in the case of the Hyænas, to an instinctive dread lest their feet should be seized and crushed by the powerful jaws of their adversary.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE CIVET FAMILY.
General Characteristics of the Civet Family—Their Scent, Skull, and Teeth—[THE AFRICAN CIVET]—Its Characters and Habits—[THE ASIATIC CIVET]—[THE LESSER CIVET]—[THE GENETTE]—[THE MUNGOOS, OR ICHNEUMON]—Curious Superstition regarding it—[THE CRAB MUNGOOS]—[THE PARADOXURE]—[THE BINTURONG].
THE name of this family[74] is given to it from the fact that the most important forms included in it are what are known as Civets, or Civet Cats, animals from which the well-known perfume of that name is obtained.
The civet is a white, fatty substance, found in two curious little pouches or turnings-in of the skin just under the animal’s tail. Thus Touchstone says: “Civet is of a baser birth than tar; the very uncleanly flux of a Cat.” The perfume “is procured by scraping the inside of the pouch with an iron spatula at intervals, about twice a week. If the animal is in good condition and a male, especially if he has been irritated, a drachm or thereabouts is obtained each time. The quantity collected from the female does not equal that secreted by the male. Civet, like most other articles of this nature, is much adulterated, and it is rare to get it quite pure. The adulteration is effected with suet or oil, to make it heavier.”
SKELETON OF CIVET.
Civet is far less esteemed as a perfume now than in former times; its odour is rank and almost overpoweringly strong, so that musk and other vegetable perfumes are now generally preferred. But in Shakspere’s time it was quite “the thing.” Don Pedro, in “Much Ado,” says of Benedick: “Nay, he rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that?” And Claudio answers: “That’s as much as to say, the sweet youth’s in love.”
The animals comprised in this group are confined entirely to the Old World, where they are represented in South Europe by the domesticated Genette; in Africa and South Asia by the true Civet (Viverra), the Ichneumons, so celebrated for their propensity for eating Crocodile’s eggs, the curious Paradoxures, and many others.
In anatomical characters, as well as in external appearance, the animals are related both to the Cat family and to the Hyænas, as will be seen by comparing the various points of their structure with those of the two families just named. They are mostly long-bodied, short-legged animals, with stiffish fur, a long tail, and a sharp muzzle. They walk on their toes, of which they have five on each foot, like Cats; many of them, however, keeping the wrist and ankle much nearer the ground than the Cats do, and being consequently distinguished as semi-plantigrade. They also wander from the regular Cat-structure in the matter of their claws, which are only half retractile, the elastic ligament not attaining the same perfection as in the Cats. Thus we conclude that in this respect, at any rate, the Civets are less specialised than the Cats proper; they approach more nearly to the central plan of Mammalian structure, and are less perfect as Carnivores. We shall see that the same is the case with respect to their other characters, such as the skull and teeth.