166 MAMMALIAN DESCENT. [Lect. VII. 



LECTURE VII. 



Insectivoea — {concluded). 



As to the doctrine of the development of the higher 

 from the lower forms of Eutheria, I have, as yet, kept 

 back some of the best witnesses ; these are all foreigners. 

 And yet there is no need that we should go beyond the 

 sea to fetch witnesses to the truth of this doctrine, nor 

 that we should go into the depths of the earth ; the 

 proofs are nigh unto us, and surround us everywhere. 

 The Order Insectivora, in its present state, contains a 

 great variety of types, and neither my time, nor my 

 materials for work have enabled me to study much more 

 than the representatives of about half the known tjrpes. 

 In my last two Lectures, I have spoken of the structure 

 of the skull, especially of the Hedgehog, the Mole, and 

 the Shrew, each the head of a famUy, and famous 

 amongst the tribes of the Insectivora. But I have 

 worked out the skull in its early stages in Centetes, or 

 the Tenrec ; in Gcdeopithecu.s, or the Flying Cat ; and 

 in Rhynchocyon, a large, long-snouted, proboscidean 

 Insectivore, from the east coast of Africa near Zanzibar. 

 I have only seen the adult Tupaia; of this type I 



