THE CARNIVORA. 45 



family of creatures they looked. The various genera of 

 these Centetidae do not roll themselves into a ball like the 

 hedgehogs, but place the head between the fore-paws, and 

 their spines and prickly hairs probably serve them equally 

 well as a protection from their enemies. 



Small as the insectivorous animals of Madagascar are, 

 they are remarkable from the fact that " in no equally con- 

 fined area are they represented by so many peculiar types as 

 in Madagascar." But it is still more remarkable that the 

 only other known genus of Centetidae is found in the "West 

 India Islands. The animal representing this genus, the 

 Solenodon, is more slender in form than the Madagascar 

 Centetidae, and more active in its habits. It has a long rat- 

 like tail, and a tapering snout, like that of a shrew. One 

 species is found in Cuba, and the other in Hayti, and they 

 are among the very few mammals which are known to be 

 indigenous to the West India Islands. "Although," says 

 Mr. Wallace, "presenting many points of difference in detail, 

 the essential characters of this curious animal are, according 

 to Professors Peters and Mivart, identical with the rest of the 

 Centetidae. We have thus a most remarkable and well- 

 established case of discontinuous distribution, two portions of 

 the same family being now separated from each other by an 

 extensive continent, as well as by a deep ocean." * 



Carnivora. — The carnivorous animals of Madagascar are 

 small compared with those of Africa. They belong chiefly 

 to the Viverridse or Civets, a family now chiefly found in 

 Africa and South-east Asia, but which, during the Miocene 

 period, also flourished i-n Europe. The typical animal of 

 this family, called by the natives fdsa (which is also its 

 generic name), is a long-bodied animal, with short legs and 

 long bushy tail, and with longitudinal stripes of dark-brown 

 spots on a ground of light-greyish brown. It is between two 

 and three feet long, and very destructive to birds and small 

 quadrupeds. There are only two species of it yet known. 



The true viverra has not yet been found in Madagascar, but 

 it inhabits the Comoro Islands, which are doubtless part of 

 the ancient land of which Madagascar is the most considerable 



* Wallace, The Geographical Distribution of Animals, vol. ii. p. iSS. 



