SOLENODON PARADOXUS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The Museum has recently been fortunate in securing from San Domingo, 

 a series of specimens of the rare Solcnodon paradoxus Brandt. Four of these 

 were brought ahve, and were successfully photographed by Mr. George Nelson. 

 The more interesting of the photographs were reproduced with the Annual 

 Report of the Curator for 1907 08. The present paper is a comjiarative account 

 of the general anatomy of the species, made possible by this fresh material. 

 For the loan of its specimens of Solcnodon cuhanus thanks are due the United 

 States National Museum. 



HISTORY. 



The brief history of this species is now well known. It was originally 

 described in 1833 by J. F. Brandt from a skin and an imperfect skull, in the 

 St. Petersburg Academy, fmm Haiti. This specimen was subsequently studied 

 by Peters in connection witli the Cuban species, described by him in 1864. 

 Leche states that he too, made use of this skull and other fragments of the 

 skeleton, when in 1907 he ])ublished his extensive j^aper on the teeth of the 

 Insectivora. The exact nature of the other fragments is not stated but from 

 the text it appears that a jx'lvis with the sacral vertebrae labeled as of this 

 species, was among the material studied. These bones were figured by Leche 

 who called attention to the remarkable characters shown by them in comparison 

 with those of other Insectivora. There can be no doubt, as will be shown later, 

 that the pelvic and sacral bones figured are not those of Solcnodon. Through 

 the labors of Peters and Dobson, the anatomy of Solcnodon cubanus was fairly 

 well known more than twenty years ago, but no additional specimens of S. 



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