Mr. G. R. Waterhouse on the Rodentia. 197 



XXXII. — Observations on the Rodentia. By G. R. Water- 

 house, Esq., Curator to the Zoological Society of London. 



[Continued from vol. viii. p. 84.] 



Considerable time has elapsed since I commenced the 

 publication of my classification of the Rodentia, the ground- 

 work of which was derived chiefly from the characters fur- 

 nished by the skulls ; and during the somewhat long intervals 

 which elapsed between the appearance of the separate parts of 

 the paper, I am happy to find that several mammalogists have 

 devoted their attention to the group, and more especially Prof. 

 A. Wagner, who has published a classification of the order in 

 the first part of Wiegmann's e Archiv fur Naturgeschichte' for 

 1841*. 



Prof. Wagner objects to my classification because all the 

 families are not reduced to their proper limits, and because 

 some have been discarded by me which require to be re-esta- 

 blished ; had I however completed my paper, and certain fa- 

 milies had then been left uncharacterized, part of this objec- 

 tion would have had more force. 



The first family (Pedimana), according to Prof. Wagner's 

 classification, I should not have attempted to characterize, be- 

 cause the single animal upon which the family is founded I 

 have always regarded as a member of a different order — I al- 

 lude to the Cheiromys Madagascariensis. 



The second family (Sciurina), the third (Myoccina), and the 

 fourth and fifth families (Macropoda and Chinchillina) agree 

 perfectly with four families characterized by myself, Again, 

 as regards our views of the contents of the family Murina, I 

 find no essential difference. Prof. Wagner places in this fa- 

 mily a few genera with the characters of which I was not suf- 

 ficiently acquainted, and for that reason I omitted to introduce 

 them. 



Beyond the several families above mentioned, and the Ba- 

 thyergidce, none have yet been characterized in my paper. 



The remaining families, according to Prof. Wagner's classi- 

 fication, are, Psammoryctina, Cunicularia, Castorina, Hystri- 

 cina, Subungulata, and Duplicidentata. The genera Lepus and 

 Lagomys, which constitute the last-mentioned family, afford 

 such strongly marked characters, that in my tabular view of 

 the geographical distribution and classification of the Ro- 

 dents f> I was induced not only to form a family under the 

 name Leporidce, for their reception, but to regard them as 

 constituting a section of higher value. 



* See also Annals, vol. viii. p. 50. — Ed. 



t Published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for Nov. 1839. 



