SUB-ORDER. 



INSECTIVORA. 



Indoors and canines variable ; molars prismatic, with acute cusps ; feet with claws, plantigrade ; digits not elongated ; 

 thumb not opposable ; clavicles complete. 



In the great advances made within the last few years in our knowledge of the true relation 

 ships of many genera of mammals, few orders have experienced greater changes in systematic 

 arrangement than the Insectivora. Comparatively few of its subdivisions being found repre 

 sented in North America, it becomes necessary for American students to depend mostly upon 

 European works on the subject for a knowledge of the limits and classification of the order, and 

 I have therefore considered myself fortunate, in the recent appearance of a masterly though 

 hasty sketch of the Insectivora, by Dr. J. A. Wagner, in the fifth volume of his supplement to 

 Schreber's Saiigthiere, published in 1855. 



In Wagner's arrangement, the order is divided into the following five families : 



I. DERMOPTERA. Body margined with a hairy membrane ; mammae, pectoral. Genus: Galeo- 

 pithecus. Indian Archipelago. 



II. SCANDENTIA. General appearance that of the squirrels, but with an attenuated, elongated 

 muzzle, distinct canines, and closed orbital ring. Genus : Cladobates, India. ; Ptilocercus, 

 Borneo; Hylomys, Java. 



III. SORICIDJJ. Mouse like in appearance ; muzzle much elongated ; feet regular or normal ; 

 canines not distinguishable, or spurious ; bony orbital annulus wanting, or imperfect. 



Genera : Rhynoocyvn, Mosambique ; Gymnura, East Indies ; Macroscelides, Africa ; Sorex, 

 Old World and North America, wanting in South America and New Holland. Sub-genera : 

 Croasopus, Sorex (Brachysorex, Anotus,) Crocidura, Myosorex ; Solenodon, St. Domingo and 

 Cuba ; Myogale, eastern and western Europe. 



IV. TALPID.E. External ears wanting ; limbs short ; hand broad, provided with stout fosso- 

 rial claws. 



Genera : Urotrichus, Japan ; Scalops, North America ; Bhinaster, North America ; Talpa, 

 Europe and Asia ; Chrysochloris, South Africa. 



V. ACULEATA. Back covered with spines or bristles ; feet normal ; tail short or wanting. 

 Species confined to the Old World. 



Genera : Centetes, Madagascar ; Ericulus, Madagascar ; Echinogale, Madagascar ; Erinaceus, 

 Old World. 



The first two families have been variously placed: the Dermoptera among the bats, (and even 

 the monkeys,) from which, however, their hairy interfemoral membrane, resembling that of the 

 flying squirrel, at once separates them ; from the Aberrant Quadrumana they are readily dis 

 tinguished. The Scandentia have been distributed in different families. It is only with the 

 S&ricidce and Talpidce, however, that we have to do as inhabitants of the American continent. 



Pomel, in an article on the distribution of Insectivora, published in the Bulletin de la Soc. 

 Geologique de France, deuxieme serie, VI, Nov. 1848, 56, makes the following arrangement of 

 the order, to include both recent and fossil forms. 



