Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon Part 43

NO. 239. HERPESTES AUROPUNCTATUS.

_The Gold-speckled Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 131_).

HABITAT.--The plains near the hills from Afghanistan to Bengal, also a.s.sam and Burmah, and on into the Malayan peninsula.

DESCRIPTION.--General colour olive brown with a golden hue, or finely speckled with golden yellow, due to the fine annulation of the hair; the sides of the body slightly paler, and not so yellow; under parts dirty yellowish-white; limbs the same colour as the body; the under fur is purplish-brown in its lower two-thirds, and pale yellow in its terminal third; the long hair is smooth, fine, short, and adpressed; the tips are dark brown, then yellow, then brown, twice repeated; occasionally a yellow band at the base; in the tail there are generally eight bands, with the terminal dark brown; the skull is remarkable for the narrow and elongated character of its facial portion; the orbit is perfect in the adult. Length of skull about 1-5/12 inches; width at the zygoma, 1-1/4.

SIZE.--Head and body, 12 to 13 inches; tail, 9 to 10 inches.

This and _H. persicus_ are the smallest of the genus; it is included in Gray's genus _Calogale_, and he gives the specific name followed by Jerdon, _Nipalensis_, which is geographically misleading. I have therefore followed Dr. Anderson in retaining the more appropriate t.i.tle. _H. persicus_ is closely allied, but the nasal portion of the palate is narrower.

NO. 240. HERPESTES FUSCUS.

_The Nilgherry Brown Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 132_).

HABITAT.--Madras Presidency, Neilgherries.

DESCRIPTION.--General colour, brown; hair ringed black and yellow, tawny at the base; throat dusky yellowish.--_Jerdon_.

SIZE.--Head and body, 18 inches; tail, with hair, 17 inches.

NO. 241. HERPESTES (ONYCHOGALE _of Gray_) MACCARTHIAE.

HABITAT.--Ceylon.

DESCRIPTION.--Reddish-brown; elongate, flaccid, pale brown, with a broad thick sub-terminal band and a long whitish-brown tip; fur of hands and face shorter; feet blackish brown; hair white-tipped; tail redder; hair elongate, one coloured red; ears rounded, hairy.--_Gray_.

NO. 242. HERPESTES FERRUGINEUS.

HABITAT.--Sind.

DESCRIPTION.--Resembles rufous specimens of _H. pallidus_, but the skull shows differences in the greater breadth of the post-orbital contraction of the frontals, and a shorter, broader muzzle, more particularly with posterior or nasal part of the palate.

The next species, which is included in Gray's genus _Taeniogale_, has the bony orbit always perfect, and the molars are 6--6/7--7.

NO. 243. HERPESTES VITTICOLLIS.

_The Stripe-necked Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 133_).

NATIVE NAME.--_Loco-moogatea_, Singhalese.

HABITAT.--Southern India, Ceylon, Burmah?

DESCRIPTION.--Grizzled grey, more or less ferruginous, especially on the rump and tail; a dark stripe from the ear to the shoulder; tail rufous black at the tip; skull characteristics: large, with flattened and expanded frontal region, projected narrow muzzle and powerful teeth, larger than other Asiatic _Herpestes_, the last molar being proportionately greater.

SIZE.--Head and body 21 inches; tail 15 inches.

I have put Burmah in the list of places where this mungoose is found, having lately been shown by Mr. Davison the skin of a stripe-necked mungoose obtained by him in Burmah, which seemed to be of this species.

The next has been formed into a separate genus, _Urva_; the teeth are blunter than in _Herpestes_.

NO. 244. URVA CANCRIVORA.

_The Crab-eating Mungoose_ (_Jerdon's No. 134_).

HABITAT.--South-east Himalayas, a.s.sam, and Burmah.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Urva cancrivora_.]

DESCRIPTION.--"General colour fulvous iron-grey, inner fur woolly, outer of long straggling lax hairs, generally ringed with black, white, and fulvous; in some the coat has a variegated aspect; in others a uniform tawny tint prevails, and in a few dark rusty brown mixed with grey is the prevalent hue; abdomen brown; limbs blackish-brown; a white stripe on either side of the neck from the ear to the shoulder; tail rufous or brown, with the terminal half rufous" (_Jerdon_). Gray's account is: "black grizzled hairs with a very broad white sub-terminal ring; a white streak on the side of the neck; legs and feet black; tail ashy red at the end."

SIZE.--Head and body, 18 inches; tail, 11 inches.

Somewhat aquatic in its habits, living on frogs and crabs. It has two a.n.a.l glands, from which it can squirt a foetid secretion. It is the only mungoose mentioned in Blyth's 'Catalogue of the Mammals of Burmah,' but there are at least two more, and probably some of the Malayan species are yet to be found in Tena.s.serim.

CYNOIDEA.

This is the next and last section in the order I have adopted, of the land Carnivora, and contains the typical family _Canis_. All the animals that we shall have to deal with might and would be by some authors brought into this one genus, the only others recognised by them being the two African genera, _Megalotis_ and _Lycaon_, the long-eared fox and the hyaena-dog, and the _Nyctereutes_ or rac.o.o.n-dog of Northern China and Amoorland. But although all our Indian species might be treated of under the one genus _Canis_, it will be better to keep to the separation adopted by Jerdon, and cla.s.sify the wolves and jackals under _Canis_, and the foxes under _Vulpes_. As regards the wild dog of India, its dent.i.tion might warrant its being placed in a separate genus, but after all the name chosen for it is but merely a difference in sound, the two being the same thing in Latin and Greek.

But although this group contains the smallest number of forms, the varieties of the domestic dog are endless, and no part of the world is without a species of the genus, except certain islands, such as the West Indies, Madagascar, the Polynesian isles, New Zealand and the Malayan archipelago; in these territories there is no indigenous dog. I speak of dogs in its broad sense of _Canis_, including wolves and foxes.

The proper position of the _Cynoidea_ should be between the bears and the cats, as in their dent.i.tion they approximate to the former, and in their digitigrade character to the latter; but, with a view to make this work concurrent with that of Jerdon's, I have accepted the position a.s.signed by him, though it be a little out of place.

The general form of the skeleton of a dog resembles that of a feline, though the limbs may be to a certain extent longer; they also walk on the tips of their toes, but their claws are not retractile, although the ligament by which the process of retraction in the cat is effected is present in a rudimentary form, but is permanently overpowered by the greater flexor muscles. A dog's paw is therefore by no means such a wonderful piece of mechanism and example of power as that of the cat, but is feeble in comparison, and is never used as a weapon of offence, as in the case of felines, the prey being always seized by the teeth.

The skull partakes of the characteristics of both cat and bear. It departs from the simple cutting dent.i.tion of the former by the addition of two tuberculated molars in each upper jaw, or one more than the rudimentary molar in the cat, whilst the lower jaw has two extra molars on each side; the premolars are also in excess, being four in number on each side of the upper and lower jaws, whereas in the feline there are three above and two below.

There is also a difference in the lower carna.s.sial or first molar, which impinges on the upper carna.s.sial or fourth premolar; it has a protuberance behind, termed the heel, which is prominently marked, but it is in the molars in which the greatest deviation from the specially carnivorous dent.i.tion occurs. The incisors are somewhat larger than, but the canines and premolars approximate to, those of the felines; the crown of the incisors is cuspidate, and the premolars increase gradually in size, with the exception of the fourth in the upper jaw, the carna.s.sial, which is treble the size of the one next to it.

But it is in the molars that we find the similarity to the semi-herbivorous bears. The last two molars on each side of the upper and lower jaws are true grinders, divided into four cusps, which suits the dog to a mixed diet.

Of course the increased number of teeth (the dog has forty-two against thirty of the cat) necessitates a prolonged muzzle, and therefore the skull has more of the bear than the cat shape. The nasal bones are long, the zygomatic arch smaller, but it has the ear-bulb or _bulla tympani_, so conspicuous in the cat and wanting in the bear, yet the character of the aperture of the ear or _auditory meatus_ approaches that of the latter, as the margins of its outer aperture are somewhat prolonged into a short tube or spout, instead of being flush, as in the felines. Then the bony clamp or par-occipital process, which in the cats is fixed against the hinder end of the bulla, is in the dogs separated by a decided groove.

The intestinal peculiarities of this section consist of a very large caec.u.m or blind gut, which is small in the cats and wholly absent in the bears, and in the very long intestines. Some have a sub-caudal gland secreting a pungent whey-like matter.

_GENUS CANIS--THE DOG_.

Muzzle obtuse; tail short; no caudal gland.

Dental formula: inc., 6/6; can., 1--1/1--1; premolar, 4--4/4--4; molar, 2--2/3--3.