CARNARIA. 67 



their tail is longer, and what more particularly serves to distinguish them 

 from the former is, that their nostrils are surrounded with little movable 

 cartilaginous points, which, when they separate, radiate like a kind of star. 

 One species particularly is found in North America — Sorex cristatus, L. 

 (The Radiated Mole) similar to the Mole of Europe, the nose excepted, 

 but having a tail more than double the length of that of the latter. 



ScALOPS, Cuv. 

 Teeth very similar to those of the Desmans, except that the small or false 

 molars are less numerous, the muzzle is simply pointed, like that of the 

 Shrew; their hands are widened, armed with strong nails fitted to excavate 

 the earth, and exactly similar to those of Moles: in fact their mode of life 

 is tlie same; their eyes are equally as small, and their ears quite as much 

 hidden. The only species known is the 



iS^. aquaticus. It appears to inhabit a great part of North America, along 

 rivers, &c. Its external resemblance to the common Mole of Europe(l) 

 is so great, that it is easy to mistake the one for the other. 



FAMILY III. 



CARNIVORA. 



Although the term carnivorous is applicable to all unguiculated 

 animals, not quadrumanate, that have three sorts of teeth, inasmuch 

 as they all use more or less animal aliment, there are, however, 

 many of them, the two preceding families especially, which are 

 compelled by weakness and the conical tubercles of their grinders 

 to live almost entirely on Insects. It is in the present family that 

 the sanguinary appetite for flesh is joined to the force necessary to 

 obtain it. There are always four stout, long, and separated canini, 

 between which are six incisors in each jaw, the root of the second 

 of the lower ones being placed a little more inwards than the others. 

 The molars are either wholly trenchant, or have some blunted tu- 

 berculous parts, but they are never bristled with conical points. 



These animals are so much the more exclusively carnivorous, as 

 their teeth are the more completely trenchant, and the proportions 

 of their regimen may be calculated from the extent of the tubercu- 

 lous surface of their teeth, compared with that which is trenchant. 

 The Bears, which can subsist altogether on vegetables, have nearly 

 all their teeth tuberculated. 



(1) It is the Common Mole of the United States. £m. Ed. 



