7t> MAMMALIA. 



Mygale, Cuv. 



The Desmans differ from the shrews by two very small teeth placed be- 

 tween the two great incisors of the lower jaw, and in their two upper in- 

 cisors, which are triangular and flattened. Behind these incisors are six 

 or seven small teeth and four bristled molars. Their muscle is drawn out 

 into a little flexible proboscis, which they keep constantly in motion. 

 Their long tail, scaly, and flattened on the sides, and their five-fingered 

 feet all united by membranes, evidently proclaim them to be aquatic ani- 

 mals. Their eyes are very small, and they have no external ears. 



Sorex moschatus, L. ; BufF. X. 1.; Pall. Act. Petrop. 1781, part 

 II, pi. 5. (The Russian Musk Rat). Nearly as large as a shrew; 

 above, blackish ; beneath, whitish ; tail not so long as the body by 

 one-fourth. Very common along the rivers and lakes of southern 

 Russia, where it lives on worms, the larvae of insects, and particularly 

 on leeches, which, by means of its flexible snout, it easily withdraws 

 from the mud. Its burrow, which is made in the beach, commences 

 under water, and ascends to such a height as to be above its level in 

 the greatest floods. This animal never comes voluntarily on shore, 

 but numbers of them are taken in the nets of the fishermen. Its 

 musky odour arises from a kind of pomatum that is secreted in small 

 follicles under the tail, and it is so powerful as to be communicated 

 to the flesh of the pike, w'hicli feeds on the musk rat. 



A small species of this genus is found in the rivulets of the Pyre- 

 nees, whose tail is longer than its body, which M. Geoff", has made 

 kno^vn, Ann. du Mus. tom. XVII. pi. iv. f. 1, Myg. pyrendica, H. 



Chrysochloris, Lacep. 



Have, like the preceding genus, two incisors above, and four below ; but 

 their grinders are long, distinct, and almost all shaped like triangular 

 prisms. Their muzzle is short, broad, and recurved, and their fore-feet 

 have only three nails, of which the external, being very large, extremely 

 arcuated and pointed, serves them as a powerful instrument for excavating 

 and piercing the earth ; the others regularly decrease in size. The hind 

 feet have five of an ordinary size. They are subterraneous animals, whose 

 mode of life is similar to that of moles. To enable them to dig the better, 

 their fore-arm is supported by a third bone placed under the cubitus. 



C. asiaticus; TaJpa asiatica, L. ; Schreb. CLVII; and better, 

 BrowTi, 111. XLV. (The Golden Mole). A little smaller than the 

 European mole ; no apparent tail ; is the only quadruped knomi that 

 presents any appearance of those splendid metallic tints which bright- 



cimens or varieties of one and the same species, to which I also refer the S. giganteus, 

 Isid. Geoff. Mem. du Mus. XV. pi. 4, fig. 3; perhaps even the S.flavescens, Isid. Geofl". 

 ib. Seba figures it, Mus. I. pi. 31, f. 7 and 11— pL 63, fig. 5, and the white variety, 

 I. pi. 47, f. 4. — Add the S. vmrinus, Lin. of Java, of the size of a mouse; grey; ears 

 naked; tail round and nearly as long as the body. — The S. brevicaudus, Say, from 

 North America; blackish, ears concealed, tail one-fourth the length of the body. — 

 S. parvus, Id. with naked ears. — The S. suaveolcns. Pall., and the other species pointed 

 out by him in his Zoography of Russia. This genus needs revision as much as that 

 of the Bats. 



