*S* 



NATURE 



[Da. «i, 1879 



streak under each eye, and the tip of the tail, are white ; 

 and the long hairs which clothe the body and tail are dark 

 only in the middle, the base and tip being white, as are 

 also a great quantity of finer and shorter hairs which form 

 a sort of under fur. But the chief peculiarity of the coat 

 is to be found in the arrangement of the hairs of the body. 

 The long hairs of the middle of the back and tail, some 

 of which are nearly three inches in length, are capable of 

 being raised into a nearly upright position, forming a sort 

 of crest which gives the animal a very peculiar aspect, 

 and this crest is separated from the pendulous hair of the 

 flanks by a sort of furrow clothed with very peculiar hair 

 of a greyish-tawny colour. These hairs are unlike any 

 others known to occur among mammals. The apical 

 part is of the ordinary construction ; but the following 

 portion down to the base is ' very rugose, and presents a 

 spongy aspect, due to the interlacing, and, so to speak, 

 felting of a multitude of epidermic filaments emanating 

 from radiate cells, which constitute a perfect network of 

 irregular meshes. Within the sort of sheath thus formed 

 longitudinal filaments which break up into bundles of 

 fibrils are to be seen.' 



" Very little is known as to the habitat of this animal, 

 which M. Milne-Edwards has named Lophiomys imhausi, 

 the former name referring to the crested character of the 

 back, the second commemorating the person who fir=t 

 brought the creature to the notice of naturalists. M. 

 Imhaus, stopping for a few hours at Aden, on his way 

 home from Reunion, saw a living specimen of this rodent 

 in the possession of a Negro, from whom he bought it, but 

 could learn nothing as to its origin. He inferred, how- 

 ever, that it had not been brought very far, and that its 

 native country was either Southern Arabia, or some region 

 in Abyssinia, or Nubia, on the other side of the Red Sea. 

 This specimen was brought to France, and lived for about 

 a year and a half in the Garden of Acclimatization in the 

 Bois de Boulogne, where it fed upon maize, vegetables, 

 and bread, slept during the day, and climbed with ease 

 upon chairs and other convenient objects by the aid of 

 its hinder hands. It never took its food in the fore-paws 

 to carry it to the mouth as so many rodents do. When 

 irritated it elevated the crest right down to the end of the 

 tail, and defended itself by biting vigorously." 



The chapter on the fossil Rodentia contains a large 

 number of facts packed into a small compass ; reference 

 will be found in it to very many of the recent discoveries 

 of rodent remains in the miocene deposits in America, 

 and a detailed account is given of that remarkable fossil 

 form called Mesolherium cristatum, by M. Serres, and for 

 which Mr. Alston has formed a section of the rodents 

 called Hebetidentata from their incisor teeth, which, 

 instead of having the chisel-like edge so characteristic of 

 the incisor teeth of all rodents, are continuously enamelled 

 and are four in number in the lower jaw, and two in the 

 upper. The skull and teeth of this strange form are 

 figured ; as Mr. Alston says, " It appears to have been a 

 survivor, to pliocene times, of a much earlier type, which 

 represented an era at which the Rodents were not yet 

 clearly marked off from their allies. In fact, Mesotherium 

 seems to continue into the order Glires, that line of 

 affinity which Prof. Flower has pointed out as extending 

 from the typical Ungulates through Hyracodon, Homa- 

 lodontotherium, Nesodon, and Toxodon." 



The following is an account of Hoffmann's sloth 

 {C/wlcrpits Hoffmann!): — 



"This is a sloth with two clawed fingers on the fore, 

 and with three claws on the hinder extremities. Living 

 specimens are occasionally brought to Europe, especially 

 from Porto Rico, so that its general appearance may now 

 and then be studied at the Zoological Gardens, in the 

 Regent's Park. If it be looked at there in the day-time, 

 it certainly merits the name of sloth, for it resembles a 

 bundle of long, light, brown hair, fixed on the top of a 

 bar of wood close to an upright branch, or huddled up in 



a corner on the ground ; but in the morning, and also 

 late in the evening, the creature begins to move slowly, 

 and to look out for the food put for its use on the floor of 

 the den. All the Hoffmann's sloths have pale brown hair, 

 whiter at the tips, and a white face, showing a brown 

 band across the nose, extending to a ring round each eye. 

 They have also a long and full crest of hair on the neck, 

 and the hair on the limbs is darker than that of the rest 

 of the animal. Dr. Peters, who discovered this sloth, 

 examined the skeleton, and found only six vertebrae in 

 the neck, and in this it differs from the Choloepus just 

 noticed. 



" When its food, consisting of carrots and lettuce, and 

 bread-and-milk, is put down in the morning it is soon in 

 movement, and enjoys its milk hanging down from a bar 

 with its hind legs, and resting its back on the floor of the 

 cage. It seizes the food between the claws and the long 

 straight palm of the fore-foot, and passes it into its 

 mouth, chewing actively with the molar teeth, especially 

 with the first, which are sharp. It cares little for the 

 spectators, and when it has finished, slowly mounts up 

 into a corner of its little den and settles down to sleep. 

 In the evening it becomes lively, for it is, and, indeed, all 

 sloths are, nocturnal in habit. The hairless snout, of a 

 light red tint, the absence of ' smellers,' the little eyes 

 with a few hairs around them, and the broad forehead, 

 give the animal a curious appearance. The hair is 

 brushed back on the forehead, and comes around the 

 very small ears on to the cheeks, and is whitey-brown, 

 and this same tint is seen over the whole of the back in 

 long slender hairs. But the under hair is light red or 

 red-brown. The long and slender hand, with its two 

 claws, contrasts with the rather bulky upper part of the 

 limbs, and the flesh-coloured palms are very remarkable. 



"The whole of the sloths lead very monotonous lives ; 

 their food is ever within their reach, and it is abundant, 

 and they do not appear to have to compete much or at all 

 in the struggle for existence with other animals. Their 

 enemies are snakes and the carnivora, but it is evident 

 that they are much more readily preserved by their habits 

 from the latter than from the former. Leading such an 

 uneventful existence, there is no great call upon their 

 nervous energies or intelligence, and these are at a low 

 pitch. The brain consequently is very simple in regard 

 to convolutions, which are few in number and shallow." 



The portion of this volume devoted to the birds is what 

 might have been expected from so well-known an ornitho- 

 logist as Mr. Sharpe. In the preparation of the chapters 

 on the anatomy of a bird, he acknowledges his obligations 

 to his colleague in the British Museum, Mr. Jeffery Bell, 

 and an excellently well written chapter it is, though it 

 ends a little abruptly ; and the periods of incubation in 

 the case of some of the best known birds might usefully 

 have been added. 



In the present volume, the two first orders, that of the 

 birds of prey and of the picarian birds, are treated of, and 

 the rest of the orders will probably form volume iv., the 

 publication of which, we trust, will not be long delayed. 

 While aware of the vast multitude of the feathered throng 

 which Mr. Sharpe has to pass under review, might we 

 suggest to him that it is very important that when he 

 gives a paragraph to a sub-family, he might so arrange it 

 as to let the reader discover without difficulty what 

 species quoted really belonged to it ? Thus, the 

 arrangement on p. 310 is very perplexing. The sub- 

 family of the cockatoos is of the same value, so far 

 as classification goes, as that of the Amazon parrots 

 or of the Conures, and yet there is no uniformity, so 

 far as typographical details go, to indicate this. If 

 there be a genus Androglossa, it is not alluded to, ar.d 

 for want of quoting, at least one species of the genus 

 Nasiterna in the preceding paragraph, the " it " that 

 was found at Mafoor by von Rosenberg must remain an 

 unknown bird to the reader. There are said to be about 



