EXTERNAL APPEARANCE. 9 
than those surrounding and are doubtless tactile. A single vibrissa 25 mm. 
long is present on the midline of the chin below the angle of the mouth. Two 
or three long coarse hairs are also found midway between the eye and the ear. 
The ear is large, and nearly round in general outline, though the anterior 
margin is straight. A large posterior basal lobe is marked off by a conspicuous 
notch halfway on the posterior border. A smaller lobe is similarly indicated 
at the base of this larger lobe. The whole appears to be comparable with the 
antitragus of other mammals. On its internal surface is a rounded ridge. 
This and the more ectal portion of the antitragus are thinly covered by hair. 
The tragus, at the base of the antero-internal border of the ear, is a barely 
indicated marginal prominence. A prominent metatragus is well developed, 
just below and anterior to the center of the ear. It consists of a large rounded 
lobe anteriorly with a short small ridge-like projection just posterior and paral- 
lel to it. These two prominences are placed slightly obliquely to the vertical 
axis, inclined forward. From the notch separating postero-dorsally the anti- 
tragal lobe, a prominent ridge is developed, with a somewhat crescentiform 
outline, the concavity ventral, projecting inward nearly a third the diameter of 
the ear. There is on each ear, directly above this ridge and about 3 mm. from 
the posterior rim of the conch, a low round papilla. The border of the ear is 
slightly emarginate above this papilla, a result possibly of injury, since the two 
notches are not of exactly the same appearance in the two ears. ‘The distal 
half of both inner and outer surfaces of the conch is sprinkled with minute 
appressed hairs. The ear of S. cubanus is slightly larger. 
The body is round and stout, the limbs heavy and muscular. The latter 
present no remarkable modifications, but the claws of the anterior digits are 
greatly developed, apparently for scratching the surface rather than for burrow- 
ing in the earth. In the Cuban Solenodon they are absolutely longer and more 
slender, although the animal itself is smaller. The three middle digits of fore 
and hind feet are subequal. The innermost digit is in each case the shortest. 
The hind foot is of a very generalized type, and with long metatarsal bones 
suited to the semi-plantigrade method of walking. 
The tail is long and stout in S. paradorus, though rather more slender, 
relatively, than in S. cubanus. In both it is covered at the base by dense hairs, 
fine and very short, which extend forward to the posterior part of the rump, 
where the long hairs abruptly stop. The tail is covered with very small scales, 
between which are scattered minute hairs. Near the base of the tail there are 
about 36 scales in a single transverse row. 
