ERINACEIDtE. 



TRUE HEDGEHOGS. 

 Genus ERINACEUS. 



1758. Erinaceus, Carolus Linnaeus, Systema Natura, x., 52 ; xii., 75, 1766 ; based 



on Erinaceus europceus of Linnseus. 

 1868. Herinaceus, Mink Palumbo, "Cat. Mamm. Sicilia, in Ann. Agr. Sic, 



2nd sen, xii.,'37." (Not seen ; thus quoted by Palmer.) 



This genus, which includes one British species, is of wide 

 distribution, and its many representatives are found numerously 

 throughout Europe, Africa, and the greater part of Asia, but not 

 in America, Madagascar, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, the Malay 

 Peninsula, or Australia. Many of the species are very little 

 known, but there may be mentioned my E. roumanicus 

 (Matschie's E. danubicus), a dusky hedgehog with white breast- 

 spot and peculiar skull characters, ranging from Bohemia and 

 Roumania to Greece ; Satunin's E. ponticus, with a subspecies 

 abasgicus, which I have not been able to examine, described 

 from western Transcaucasia ; Schrenck's amurensis from 

 Amurland ; Erxleben's sibiricus from Siberia ; Satunin's 

 ussuriensis from the Ussuri country. Eastern Siberia, and 

 chinensis from Chingan, Tyntza-intza, China ; Swinhoe's 

 dealbatus, a pale form from China (Peking, Chefoo) ; Matschie's 

 kreyenbergi, tschifuensis, and kunensis, all from China, and 

 Thomas's miodon and hughi from Shen-shi, China. Allen's 

 orientalis from Vladivostok is said to be externally of europceus- 

 like type, but with quite distinct cranial characters (see my 

 paper in Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., April 1900, 360-368). 

 Bate's E. nesiotes of Crete is a somewhat small insular form. 



The genus is not represented in America, but Matthew's 

 Proterix {Bull. American Mus. Nat. Hist., xix., 227, fig. i, 

 9th May 1903), from the Oligocene beds of South Dakota, was 

 VOL. IL *^ D 2 



