CROCiDURA (pachyura) coquerelii. 89 



by an interspace and implanted much more backwards 

 and inwards than in any known species of the subgenus 

 Pachyura. The first large molar has a triangular base 

 longer than wide, whilst in the other species this tooth 

 is nearly as large as long (as in P. etrusca) , or even 

 exhibits an almost square cingulum (in P. madagascariensis). 

 This disposition of the teeth agrees with what is found, 

 although on a larger scale, in the largest Shrew of India, 

 Crocidura (P.) coerulescens Shaw =: Cr. (P.) indica E. 

 Geoffr. , but is even proportionally exaggerated in our 

 small species; whilst in all the very small Pachyura of 

 India , the rudimentary premolar , contiguous with the ca- 

 nine, although not infrequently internal to the tooth-row, 

 is always partially or loholly visible exteriorly. And so the 

 large Pachyura coeridescens of India seems more closely 

 allied to the very small Pachyura of the African and Ma- 

 lagasy Fauna than to the small species of the Indian or 

 Oriental region. 



Again it is worthy of notice, that not one species of 

 a size so very small is recorded as inhabiting East Africa, 

 amongst the numerous Shrews hitherto known from Mo- 

 zambique, Zanzibar and Momba9a, most of which were 

 described by Professor W. Peters. ') 



Villevêque, 16 March 1880. 



1) It may here be meütioned that this naturalist has described , in the year 

 1869, — see Baron C. C. von der Decken's Reisen in Ost-Africa, Bd. IIT, 

 Abth. I, p. 10 — a shrew of a much larger size, belonging to another sub- 

 genus: Crocidnra alhicauda Peters; which was brought home from the Island 

 of Angasilia (Comores). And so (this Shrew included) there are known three 

 Soricidae which are peculiar to Madagascar; and it seems that they are con- 

 fined to the small archipelagoes (Nossi-Be, Mayotte, Comores) situated N. E. 

 of the large island. This region of the Madagascar Fauna approaches more clo- 

 sely to the Fauna of the African continent than any other. (E. L, Troucssai-t.) 



Notes frona the Leyden IMtiseurn, Vol. II. 



7 



