1016 MR. OLDFINLD THOMAS ON THE [Dec. 15, 
D. MYOMORPHA. 
V. Gliride. 
A. GuIRInz. 
16. Glis', Briss. , 
Régne Animal, p. 160 (1756). [Myovus, 
Schr. Sing. iv. p. 824 (1792).] 
17. Muscardinus, Kaup. 
Entw. europ. Thierw. p. 139 (1829). 
18. Eliomys, Wagn. 
Abh. Ak. Miinch. iii. p. 176 (1843). [Biéfa, 
Latr. Le Nat. 1885. ] 
19. Graphiurus, F. Cuv. & Geoffr. 
H. N. Mamm. (fol.) livr. 60 (1845). 
B. PLATACANTHOMYIN 2 °. 
20. Platacanthomys, Bly. 
J.A.S. B. xxviii. p. 288 (1859). 
21. Typhlomys, M.-Edw. 
Bull. Soc. Philom. (6) xi. p. 9 (1877). 
similar words, inquiry among pure classicists (other than zoologists) elicits the 
opinion that the Latins were so careless and irregular themselves in this respect, 
that it is impossible to make a hard-and-fast rule about it, and that we should 
therefore accept the original aspiration or non-aspiration of scientific names. 
Personally I look with loathing on these h-less names, but I feel bound to 
recognize that it is not right to alter words formed by authors who Latinized 
their Greek in the very way that the Latins themselves sometimes did. 
1 See Merriam, ‘ Science,’ 1895, p. 376. 
2 Dr. Winge has replaced Platacanthomys in the Gliridex, from which it was 
remoyred to the Muridx by Dr. Peters, and in this he has been followed by 
Dr. Tullberg ; and I am informed by Dr. Forsyth Major, to whom I am 
indebted for much assistance in the preparation of the present paper, that he 
also holds the same view. On the whole, although I think there is enough 
evidence of Murine affinity in Platacanthomys and its ally Typhlomys to make 
the question rather doubtful, Iam inclined to agree to the reference of these 
genera to the family Gliride, on account of the structure of their teeth and 
interorbital region, the peculiar glirine twisting of their mandibular angles, 
and of their (or at least the former’s) want of a cecum—a character found in the 
Gliride alone of the Rodents, and one which I am now able to record for the 
first time in Platacanthomys. 
As to their position within the family, I venture to think that Winge’s 
combination of them into Glis, Eiomys, and Muscardinus, in a group set over 
as a whole against Graphiwrus, is quite astonishingly unnatural, and is evi- 
dently due to the exaggerated value he gives to his pet character of the ante- 
orbital structures, The Platacanthomyine form by themselves a very natural 
subfamily, set over against the Dormice ; while even among the latter it might 
be quite as correct to separate Glis and Muscardinus on the one side from 
Eliomys and Graphiurws on the other by the pattern of the teeth, as to separate 
the last-named from the rest by the structure of the anteorbital region. An 
interesting example of the occasional variability of the last-named character is 
given by Blarinomys, which, obviously a modified offshoot of Acodon and 
Oxymycterus, has an anteorbital region not at all unlike that of Graphiurus. 
