Phe ANS Ang Tl ONS 
OF 
Pete L.0.0 0:6 46 AL,,5 O CI ET ¥. 
I. On the Characters and Affinities of Potamogale, a genus of Insectivorous Mammals. 
By Grorce J. Auiman, F.R.S., Corr. Mem. Zool. Soc. Lond., Regius Professor of 
Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, and Regius Keeper of the Edinburgh 
Museum of Natural History. 
Read June 13th, 1863. 
{Prates I. & II.] 
A. SMALL mammal, with which I was entirely unacquainted, was lately placed in my 
hands by Mr. Archibald Hewan, who had just returned to this country from the west 
coast of Africa, where he had been for some time residing, at Old Calabar, in the 
capacity of medical missionary. ‘The notes which accompanied the specimen were 
scanty. It is stated to have been observed by one of the natives on the banks of a 
stream, when it was pursued, and killed, and taken to the missionary-station, where, 
after having been partly eviscerated, it was put into spirits. In this condition it was 
brought to England by Mr. Hewan, along with various other objects of interest from 
the same quarter*. 
A little examination was sufficient to show that the Old Calabar mammal belonged 
to the order Jnsectivora, but that, with a well-marked insectivorous organization, it 
possessed characters of a very peculiar kind, and such as separated it widely from every 
genus hitherto referred to this order. 
While engaged in preparing a description of the new insectivore, I showed the speci- 
men to Mr. Sclater, the accomplished Secretary of the Zoological Society, who at once 
recognized it as identical with a very badly preserved skin which had been brought 
* The specimen is now preserved in the Edinburgh Museum of Natural History. 
VOL. VI.— PART I. B 
