726 CLASS XYII. 



4-4 



tigiious, the spurious shorter than incisors ; the true ^ — ^ , upper 



with crown transverse, quadrate, hist very small, lower with crown 

 tricuspidate externally, arranged obliquely inwards and forwards. 

 Head with nose produced, acuminate, mobile. Eyes small. Ears 

 broad. Feet pentadactylous, cloven. Tail moderate. 



The shrews {mures aranei, les musaraignes) are small animals, living in 

 subten-anean holes and in general fonn resembling the mice. The anterior 

 teeth above and below are very large, and are usually the only ones 

 regarded as incisors. Geoffkot St.-Hilaike announced that the anterior 

 small teeth, regarded as molars, are also implanted in the intermaxillary 

 bone^. They have no malar bone. On each side of the body a gland is 

 situated under the skin between the fore and hind legs, which is surrounded 

 by a circlet of short hairs, and secretes a fluid of the odour of musk. 

 This gland consists of tubes closely conglomerated and placed under the 

 skin ; as they approach the surface of the skin they take a straighter 

 direction at the base of the hair-follicles and finally perforate it. See VoN 

 Hassling Ueher die Seitendrilsen der Spiizmduse, Zeitschr. f. ivissensch. 

 Zool. V. 1854, s. 29 — 39. In those species that live in water the ears are 

 folded together in the water, the antitragus closing the external auditory 

 passage, which is in addition guarded by the bended conch of the ear as by 

 a second cover ; the external ear is unfolded when the shrews come out of 

 the water, just as the crown of a flower unfolds itself. See Geoffroy 

 Saint-Hilaike Mem. sur les glandes odoriferantes des Musaraignes, Mem. 

 du Mus. I. 1815, pp. 299 — 311, PI. 15. 



Compare on this genus amongst others Geoffr. St.-Hil. Ann. du Mus. 

 181 1, pp. 169 — 187, PI. 2 — 4, IsiD. Geoffr. St.-Hil., Mem sur quelques 

 especes du genre Musaraigne (also on Egyptian mummies of this genus), 

 Mem. du Mus. xv. pp. 117 — 144, PI, 4; Ddvernoy Fragmens d'Hist. 

 natur. sur les Musaraignes, Mem. de laSoc. de Strasbourg, il. 1835, pp. i — 

 36, PI. I — 3; the same, Notices pour servir a la MonograpJiie du genre 

 Musaraigne, Guerin Magas. de Zool. 1842, pp. 38 — 54; Nathusius Bei- 

 trdge zur Kenntniss der europ. Spitzmduse, Wiegmann's Arch. f. Natur- 

 gesch. 1838, pp. 19 — 47; De Selys-Longchamps Etudes de Micromam- 

 malogie, 1839, PP- ^^ — 49 > Sundevall in Kongl. Vetcnsh. Acad. Handl. 

 1842, pp. 163 — 188. (The first teeth resemble those that succeed them, and 

 in this sense the shrews have no milk-teeth ; although they change these 

 and their other teeth simultaneously (possibly more than once?) according 

 to Duvernoy. See Mem. de I'Acad. des Sciences de Paris, Savants Etran- 

 gers, Tome ix , sur les Dents des Musaraignes, 1844. According to Owen 

 Odontogr. p. 423, the shrews change their deciduous teeth before birth.) 



a) Four small teeth in upper jaw on each side between the large incisor 

 and the true molars, lower incisors not serrate, increased by an angle; 



^ M(?m. du Mus. 1. p. 307 ; see also Peters Ueber die Gebissformel der Spitzmiiuse, 

 Zeitschr. fiir Natur gesch. 1852, s. 220 — 227. 



