1016 MB. otDFUitD tnoMAS ON *HE [Dec. 15, 



D. MYOMOEPHA. 

 V. Gliridaa. 



A. Glibinjb. 



16. Glis \ Briss. 



Et'gne Animal, p. 160 (175fi). [Myoxus, 

 Schr. Siiiig. iv. p. 824 (1792).] 



17. Muscardinus, Kaup. 



Entw. europ. Thierw. p. 139 (1829). 



18. Eliomys, AVagn. 



Abb. Ak. Miinch. iii. p. 176 (1843). IBifa, 

 Latv. Le Nat. 1885.] 



19. Oraphiurus, F. Cuv. & GeofEr. 



H. N. Mamm. (fol.) livr. 60 (1845). 



B. Plataoanthomtin^ ". 



20. Platacanthomys, Blv. 



J. A. S. B. xxviii. p. 288 (1859). 



21. Tvphlomijs,M.-^div/. 



Bull. Soc. Pbilom. (0) xi. p. 9 (1877). 



similar words, inquiry among pure classicisls (other tban zoologists) elicits the 

 opinion that the Latins wore so carolcBs 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 A-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 themselres sometimes did. 



' See Merriam, ' Science,' 1895, p. 376. 



" Dr. Winge has replaced Platacanthmnys in the Glirida;, from which it was 

 remoTed to the Murida; by Dr. Peters, and in this he has been followed by 

 Dr. TuUberg ; 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 thex-e is enough 

 evidence of Murine affinity in Platacanthomys and its ally Typhtomys to make 

 the question rather doubtful, I am inclined to agree to the reference of these 

 genera to the family Qliridie, on account of the structure of their teeth and 

 interorbitnl region, the peculiar glirine twisting of their mandibular angles, 

 and of their (or at least the former's) want of a ciccum — a character found in the 

 Qliridie alone of the Rodents, and one which I am now able to record for the 

 first time in riatacanthomys. 



As to their position within the family, I venture to think that Winge's 

 combination of them into Glis, Eliomys, and Muscardinus, in a group set over 

 as a whole against Graphiurus, is quite ostonishiugly unnatural, and is evi- 

 dently due to the exaggerated value he gives to his pet character of the ante- 

 orbital structures. The Platacanthomyina 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 Graphiurus 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 Graphiurtti. 



