176 MAMMALIA. 



p. 281, pi. 71), aud that it was founded on an individual 

 brought from Pondieherry by Sonnerat. He also seemed 

 disposed to regard S. murinus, Linn, as alsoidentical with it. 

 In the same volume of the Annales du Museum in which 

 GeoflF. St. Hilaire described S. indicus, he also described 8. 

 eapensis, said to have been obtained at the Cape of Good Hope ; 

 and in the 1st volume of the Memoires du Museum, 1815, plate 

 XV, fig. 1, he gave a good representation of the former from a 

 specimen obtained at Tranquebar. In 1827, in the Mem. du 

 Mus. d' Hist. Nat., vol. xv. Is. Geoff. St. Hilaire disputed the - 

 correctness of his father's views regarding the specific dis- 

 tinctness of S. indicus and S. eapensis, and held them to be 

 one and the same species, and he renamed it S. sonneratii. He 

 doubted that the type of S, eapensis had come from the Cape 

 of Good Hope, as he considered it unlikely that such a mam- 

 mal would have been overlooked by Kolbe, Sparrman, Levail- 

 lant and Daniel, and that the expedition under Baudin, Quoy 

 and Gaimard, Lesson and Garnot and Delalande, could 

 have failed to discover it, if it existed. 



Duvernoy regarded S. eapensis as the same as S. serpentarius , 

 Is. Geoff., and he pointed out that the type of S. eapensis was 

 an individual from the Isle of France, where it had been ob- 

 tained in 1804. by Peron and Lesueur. 



Desmarest followed Geoff. St. Hilaire in separating 

 S. indieus from S. eapensis.. 



In 1827 Is. Geoff. St. Hilaire described a shrew which he said 

 was found on the Continent of India, and probably also on 

 the islands of the Archipelago, and which he identified with 

 Mummy shrews from the Catacombs of Thebes aud Mem- 

 phis. Of this shrew he says two good figures had been 

 published, being one by his father (Mem. du Mus., vol. i, 

 plate XV, fig. i) under the name of Musaraigne, 5. indicus, 

 and the other by P. Cuvier in the Histoire Nat. des Mammif., 

 under the name of Monjourou, S. indieus. Geoff. St. Hilaire, 

 however, states that this figure of 8. indieus was, as 1 have 

 already stated, taken from a Tranquebar individual. P. 

 Cuvier's figure is apparently from a Pondichery animal 

 obtained by Leschenault and is an an example of the dark 

 variety. This shrew Is. Geoff, named Sorex giganteus. 

 Writing again, 1834 (Zool.Voy.de Belauger, p. 117), he 

 gave a good description of the species founded on an indivL- 

 dual from Bengal. 



As there is no example of the large shrew of Egypt in 

 this museum, I cannot say anything regarding its specific 

 identity or distinctness from the giant shrew of India. 



