MAMMALIA. 
=I 
D 
Myaate, 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, pl. 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 larve 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, which 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 
known, Ann. du Mus. tom. XVII. pl. iv. f. 1, Wyg. pyrenaica, H. 
Curysocuioris, 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 ; Talpa asiatica, L.; Schreb. CLVII; and better, 
Brown, Il. XLV. (The Golden Mole). A little smaller than the 
European mole; no apparent tail; is the only quadruped known 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. pl. 4, fig. 3; perhaps even the S. favescens, Isid. Geoff. 
ib. Seba figures it, Mus. I. pl. 31, f. 7 and 11—pl. 63, fig. 5, and the white variety, 
I, pl. 47, f. 4.—Add the S. murinus, 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.— 
5S, parvus, Id. with naked ears.—The S. suaveolens, Pall., and the other species pointed 
enh ae in his Zoography of Russia. This genus needs revision as much as that 
of the Bats, 
