1864. | Scnater on the Mammals of Madagascar. 217 
Madagascariensis) supply us with no very precise indications as to their 
geographical affinities. 
In the next order of Mammals the Insectivora, of which nine species 
are known to inhabit Madagascar, we again find a very peculiar group of 
types, consisting of the genera Centetes, Hriculus, and Echinogale. 
These little animals, though generally associated with the Hedge-hogs 
(Erinaceus), to which in their external appearance they present much 
resemblance, have been recently declared by Dr. Peters—who has 
devoted much attention to the /nsectivora—to be most nearly allied to 
the American genus Solenodon!* So to find their nearest affines we 
have to cross the whole (present) continent of Africa and the At- 
lantic Ocean to the West Indian Islands, where the only two known 
species of Solenodon occur. 
Besides the Centetine the Insectivora of Madagascar consist of two 
species of Shrew (Sorex)—a form widely distributed in the Old, and 
northern portion of the New World, and a singular little animal, at 
present very imperfectly known, which was described by M. Doyére 
in 1835 under the name of Hupleres Goudoti. The Eupleres Goudoti 
is stated to agree in its dentition with the moles (Talpa), to which 
genus also it would likewise seem to present some resemblance in its 
habits ; but its general external conformation is much more like that 
of a small vermiform Carnivore, and its describer considers it to con- 
stitute the type of a new family of Insectivora, leading off towards the 
Carnivora. 
The order Carnivora again presents us with three types peculiar to 
the island—Cryptoprocta, Galidia and Galidictis. These, however, all 
belong to the family Viverrine—a group peculiar to the Old World, and 
of which several allied genera inhabit the adjoming parts of Africa. It 
is not, therefore, necessary to look “across the Atlantic” for the 
nearest relatives to the Madagascarian Carnivora. Strangely enough, 
the nearly universally distributed types Felis and Canis seem utterly 
unrepresented in this Fauna. 
Of Rodents only one species, I believe, has yet been registered as 
found in Madagascar. This is a squirrel of the genus Sciuwrus— 
which, as far as it is known, exhibits African affinities. Rats and mice, 
indeed, there are in Madagascar, as in nearly every other habitable 
portion of the globe where man has penetrated, but these are of the 
well-known European species, and must be put into the same category 
as the cats, dogs, and oxen which have been introduced into and flourish 
in the island. 
The important order of Ruminants, which is so greatly developed on 
the opposite coast of Africa, appear to be wholly wanting in the indi- 
genous Fauna of Madagascar. While Antelopes of numerous species 
abound in every part, whether plain or forest, of the adjoining conti- 
nent, and the Giraffe and Buffalo are likewise everywhere characteristic 
features of the Althiopian Mammal-fauna, not one of those creatures is © 
known to occur in Madagascar, and this fact alone would serve to 
* Cf. Peters, ‘ Ueber die Saiigethier-gattung, Solenodon. Abh. Acad. 
Berlin, 1868. 
