According to Jerdon, "it lives in holes in the ground or in banks,
occasionally under rocks or in dense thickets, now and then taking
shelter in drains and out-houses." Hodgson says: "These animals
dwell in forests or detached woods and copses, whence they wander
freely into the open country by day (occasionally at least) as well
as by night. They are solitary and single wanderers, even the pair
seldom being seen together, and they feed promiscuously upon small
animals, birds' eggs, snakes, frogs, insects, besides some fruits
or roots. In the Terai a low caste of woodmen, called Mushahirs, eat
the flesh." Mr. Swinhoe affirms that the Chinese also eat its flesh,
and adds: "but a portion that I had cooked was so affected with the
civet odour that I could not palate it." The fur is valued in China
as a lining for coats, and is bought by those who cannot afford the
more expensive skins. Jerdon had one which was perfectly tame; it
caught rats and squirrels at times, as also sparrows and other birds.
It is kept alive by the natives in India and Ceylon for the sake of
the secretion. Kellaart says it is a great destroyer of poultry, and
that it will enter a yard in daylight and carry off a fowl or a duck.
It is much dreaded by the Chinese for the havoc it commits in the
hen-roost.

_GENUS PRIONODON_.

Between the last genus and this should come the _Genets_, which are
not found in India, but chiefly in Africa, and one species is common
in the south of Europe, where in some parts it is domesticated for
the purpose of catching mice. It has rudimentary pouches only, which
do not yield the musky secretion of the civets. The Linsang or
_Prionodon_ is a very cat-like animal, which was once classed with
the Felidae; the body is long and slender; the limbs very short; fur
soft, close and erect, very richly coloured and spotted with black;
the grinders are tubercular; claws retractile; soles furred; tail
long, cylindrical, and ringed with black; no sub-caudal pouch. The
female has two pectoral and two inguinal mammae. Teeth, 38; molars,
5--5/6--6.

NO. 225. PRIONODON PARDICOLOR.
_The Tiger Civet or Linsang_ (_Jerdon's No. 122_).

NATIVE NAME.--_Zik-chum_, Bhotia; _Suliyu_, Lepcha.

HABITAT.--Nepal, Sikim.

DESCRIPTION.--"Rich orange buff or fulvous, spotted with black; the
neck above with four irregular lines; the body above and on the sides
with large, entire elliptic or squarish marks, eight in transverse,
and seven in