SOLENODON PARADOXUS. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The Museum has recently been fortunate in securing from San Domingo, 
a series of specimens of the rare Solenodon paradoxus Brandt. Four of these 
were brought alive, and were successfully photographed by Mr. George Nelson. 
The more interesting of the photographs were reproduced with the Annual 
Report of the Curator for 1907-08. | The present paper is a comparative account 
of the general anatomy of the species, made possible by this fresh material. 
For the loan of its specimens of Solenodon cubanus thanks are due the United 
States National Museum. 
HISTORY. 
The brief history of this species is now well known. It was originally 
described in 1883 by J. F. Brandt from a skin and an imperfect skull, in the 
St. Petersburg Academy, from Haiti. This specimen was subsequently studied 
by Peters in connection with the Cuban species, described by him in 1864. 
Leche states that he too, made use of this skull and other fragments of the 
skeleton, when in 1907 he published his extensive paper on the teeth of the 
Insectivora. The exact nature of the other fragments is not stated but from 
the text it appears that a pelvis with the sacral vertebrae labeled as of this 
species, was among the material studied. These bones were figured by Leche 
who called attention to the remarkable characters shown by them in comparison 
with those of other Insectivora. There can be no doubt, as will be shown later, 
that the pelvic and sacral bones figured are not those of Solenodon. Through 
the labors of Peters and Dobson, the anatomy of Solenodon cubanus was fairly 
well known more than twenty years ago, but no additional specimens of S. 
5 
