150 MAMMALIA. 
SpaLax, Gulden. 
The Rat-Moles have also been very properly separated from the 
Rats, although their grinders are three in number, and tuberculous, 
as inthe true Rats, and the Hamsters, and are merely a little less 
unequal. Their incisors, however, are too large to be covered by 
the lips, and the extremities of the lower ones are trenchant, recti- 
linear, and transverse, not pointed. Their legs are very short; 
each foot has five short toes, and as many flat and slender nails. 
Their tail is very short, or rather there is none; the same observa- 
tion applies to their external ear. They live under ground like the 
Moles, raising up the earth like them, although provided with much 
inferior means for dividing it, but they subsist on roots only. 
S. typhus ; M. typhus, Pall. Glir. pl. viii, Schreb. 206. (The 
Zanni, Slepez or Blind Rat-Mole.) A singular animal, which, 
from its large head, angular on the sides, its short legs, the 
total absence of a tail and of any apparent eye, has a most 
shapeless appearance. The eye is not visible externally, and 
we merely find beneath the skin a little black point, which ap- 
pears to be organised like one, but which cannot serve for the 
purpose of vision, since the skin passes over it without opening 
or even growing thinner, and being as much covered with hair 
as any other part. It is rather larger than our Rats; its fur is 
smooth, and of an ash colour, bordering onared. This is the 
animal, in the opinion of Olivier, to which the ancients alluded 
when they spoke of the Mole as being perfectly blind. 
The islands in the straits of Sunda produce a Rat-Mole as 
large as a Rabbit, of a deep. grey colour, with a white longitu- 
dinal stripe on the head, the Spalax j avanus. 
From the Rat-Moles themselves should have been separated the 
Batuvereus, Ilig.—Orycrerss, Fr. Cuv. ° 
Which, with the general form, feet, and truncated incisors of that 
genus, have four grinders throughout. Their eye, though small, is 
visible, and they have a short tail. 
B. maritimus; Mus maritimus, Gm.; Taupe des dames, Buff. 
Supp. VI, xxxviii. (The Maritime Rat-Mole.) Nearly the 
size of a Rabbit; the superior incisors furrowed with a groove, 
and the hair of a whitish grey. 
B. capensis; M. capensis, Gm.; Taupe du Cap., Buff. Supp. 
VI, xxxvi. (The Rat-Mole of the Cape.) Hardly as large as 
the Guinea-Pig ; brown, with a spot round the ear, another 
round the eye, anda third on the vortex, together with the end 
of the muzzle, white. The incisors are smooth. a 
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