CARNARIA. 89 
incisors which are flattened and triangular. Behind these incisors 
are six or seven small teeth and four bristled molars. Their snout 
is drawn out into alittle flexible proboscis, which they keep constantly 
in motion. Their long tail, scaly, and flattened on the sides, with 
their feet of five fingers all united by membranes, evidently proclaim 
them to be aquatic animals. Their eyes are very small, and they have 
no external ears. 
Sorex moschatus, L.; Buff. X; Pall. Act. Petrop. 1781, part 
Il, ph. 5. (The Russian Muskrat.) 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 bank, 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 un- 
der the tail, and it is so powerful as to be communicated to the 
flesh of the Pike which feeds on the Desman. 
A small speciés of this genus is found in the rivulets of the 
Pyrenees, whose tail is longer than its body; ascertained by M. 
Geoff. Ann. du Mus. tom. XVII, pl. iv, f. 1, Myg. pyrenaica, H. 
CurysocuLoris, Lacep. 
Animals of this genus, like those of the preceding one, have two in- 
cisors 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, that is very large, much arcuated and 
pointed, serves them as a powerful instrument for excavating and 
piercing the earth ; the others regularly decrease insize. 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 joke L.; Schreb. CLVII ; and better, 
Brown, Ill. XLV. (The Golden Mole.) A little smaller than 
the European Mole; no apparent tail; is the only known quad- 
ruped that presents any appearance of those splendid metallic 
tints which brighten and adorn so many Birds, Fishes and In- 
sects. Its fur is a green, changing to a copper or bronze ; 
Vou. IL—M © 
