Natural History: Mammalia/Viverradæ

by Philip Henry Gosse

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Family IV. Viverradæ.

(Civets.)

We find animals in this Family which recede from the eminently typical character of the last described, though in general form and appearance they retain a certain resemblance to the Cats, particularly in the prevalence of stripes or spots upon the thick fur with which they are clothed, and in their long tails marked with bars of alternate hues. They have three false molars above, and four below, the anterior of which sometimes fall out; two tolerably large tuberculous teeth above, one only below, and two tubercles projecting forwards on the inner side of the lower carnivorous tooth, the rest of that tooth being tuberculous. The tongue is beset with sharp and rough papillæ, as in the Cats. The claws, for the most part, are not sheathed, but are raised from the ground, as the animals walk. At the hinder part of the body is a membranous pouch, in which peculiar glands secrete an unctuous substance, which in many species is powerfully odorous, and was formerly much esteemed in perfumery.

The animals of this Family are of rather small size; the muzzle is pointed; the body lengthened; the limbs usually short; the fur thick; the tail usually long, often bushy. In form, they remind us of some of the larger Musteladæ, and also of the Racoons. They vary much in the intensity of their carnivorous appetite, some genera being little behind the Felidæ, while others subsist largely on a fruit diet. They are confined to the warmer regions of the Old World.

Grenus Viverra. (Cuv.)

The true Civets approach very closely the Cats, in many of their characters, as well as in their sanguinary appetites, and their nocturnal and predatory habits. Their dental system is thus arranged: inc. 6/6; can. 1—1/1—1; mol. 6—6/6—6:=40. The scent-pouch is double; the secretion copious and odoriferous; the pupil of the eye remains round in contracting; the claws are half retractile. A loose mane, capable of erection, runs along the back, more or less conspicuously; when the animal is irritated, it sets up this mane and hisses in the manner of a cat. Four species are described; inhabiting Africa, India, and the great islands adjacent: they are indolent by day, but roam at night, and prey much on birds and small quadrupeds.

The Civet of North Africa (Viverra civetta, Linn.) is about as large as a Badger, but of more graceful proportions; its colour is grey, hand-

CIVET.

CIVET.

somely, but irregularly striped and spotted with black; the tail, which is bushy, is ringed and tipped with black. The unctuous perfume, called civet, so much valued still in the East, and formerly in vogue in Europe, is the produce of this species; and to obtain it great numbers are domesticated. Father Poncel affirms that he has seen as many as three hundred in the possession of one merchant. In Buffon's time, many were imported into Holland for the same object. The civet is procured by scraping the inside of the pouch with an iron spatula, twice a week. If the animal is in good condition, and especially if it has been irritated, about a dram is collected at a time. The female, however, produces less. If it be not collected, it will drop in small pieces, about the size of a nut. Though readily tamed, the temper of the Civet is irritable, and not to be trusted.