INSECTIVORA. 



AMPHITHERIUM. 



Fig. 15. 



29 



AMPHITHERIIDM. 



AMPHITHERIUM PREVOSTII. 



Genus. AMPHITHERIUM. 



IF the genera of Insectivora now represented by living 

 species have hitherto yielded very few additions to the cata- 

 logue of British fossils but one new species of mole, and 

 no lost shrew, or hedgehog, having been well authenticated 

 from any of our recent tertiary formations the Order 

 has assumed a more than common importance in the eyes 

 of the Geologist, by the strange and unexpected forms 

 of small quadrupeds referable thereto, which have been 

 detected in strata, far more ancient than any heretofore 

 known to have concealed relics of animals so highly 

 organized as the Mammalia. 



The insect-eating quadrupeds may be the rarest, but they 

 unquestionably include the most ancient of Mammalian 

 fossils ; for, if the pedimanous Cheirotheria have failed to 

 endure the test of later scrutiny, the most rigid criti- 

 cism has but tended to rivet more firmly the links which 

 attach the Amphitheria and Phascolotheria to the Mamma- 

 lian series. 



The rare and interesting fossils on which those genera have 

 been founded, which have been the subjects of such close 

 and repeated examination, which have exercised the discri- 



