VOL. X. MAMMALIA 



By FRANK EVERS BEDDARD, M.A. Oxon., F.R.S. 



Prosector to the Zoological Society of London. 



EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE 



It is obvious that the present volume can contain but a selec- 

 tion of the enormous mass of facts at the disposal of the student 

 of this group. Thus the chief question for myself was what to 

 select and what to leave aside. It will be observed that I have 

 reduced the pages of this book to conformity with those of other 

 volumes of the series, by treating some groups more briefly than 

 others. It has appeared to me to be desirable to treat fully such 

 groups as the Edentata and the Marsupialia, and permissible to 

 be more brief in dealing with such huge Orders as those of the 

 Rodentia and Chiroptera. Lengthy disquisitions upon such 

 familiar and comparatively uninteresting animals as the Lion and 

 Leopard have been curtailed, and the space thus saved has been 

 devoted to shorter and more numerous accounts of other creatures. 

 As there are nearly six hundred genera of living Mammals known 

 to science, omission as well as compression became an absolute 

 necessity. I have given, I hope, adequate treatment from the 

 standpoint of a necessarily limited treatise to the majority of the 

 more important genera of Mammals both living and extinct ; but 

 the length of this part of the book had to be increased by the 

 discoveries of a considerable number of important new types in 

 the last ten years. 



NATURE. — " Cannot fail to be of very high value to all students of the Mammalia, 

 especially from the standpoints of morphology and palaeontology." 



ATHENy-EUM. — " Mr. Beddard has produced a volume equal in interest and value to 

 the others in the Cambridge series." 



LAND AND WATER. — " A notable book, the result of long study, patient labour, 

 sound reasoning, and careful selection, for which we are deeply indebted to the author." 



DAILY A^EWS. — " A volume which, for the interest of its contents and for its style 

 and method of treatment, is not only worthy of its predecessors, but may be regarded as one 

 of the most successful of a brilliant series." 



KNOWLEDGE. — " In this volume Mr. Beddard has undoubtedly made an important 

 contribution to the history of mammals, his te.vt-book being the only one which can be said 

 to be up to date and to contain notices of the many important types — both recent and fossil 

 — discovered during the last few years." 



FIELD. — " Its utility to the working zoological student can hardly be overrated. It is 

 exceedingly well illustrated." 



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