THE MALAYAN SHREWS. 161 



NOTE XII. 



ON THE SHREWS FROM THE MALAYAN 

 ARCHIPELAGO. 



BY 



Dr. P. A. JENTINK. 



April 1888. 



It is a great exception if collections made by naturalists 

 having collected in the islands of the Malayan Archipelago 

 contain Shrews. For that reason specimens of this group 

 of Insectivora are very rare in the Musea of Natural His- 

 tory and a very small number of species have been des- 

 cribed. In this paper I will try to give a review of the 

 known species and their distribution over the islands of 

 the named Archipelago. 



In the 12th edition of his Systema Naturae, Linnaeus 

 described the first a Malayan species after a specimen from 

 Java: he named it Sorex murinus (Sorex marinus apud 

 Gmelin). Notwithstanding Pallas was convinced of the 

 fact that he described Linnaeus' species , he however called 

 it Sorex myosurus. S. Muller and Macklot, the zealous 

 and well known members of the scientific staff of the Dutch 

 Commission for natural history investigations in our Ar- 

 chipelago , reported that Sorex myosurus P. («S. murinus L.) 

 was to be found in Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes and 

 Amboina , but that there is living in Timor another spe- 

 cies , which they described under the name of Sorex tenuis 

 in the work, entitled » Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke 

 Geschiedenis, etc. 1839—1841". 



Notes from tlae Leyden IMuseura, Vol. X. 



11 



