28 Dentition and Characters 



are a little coloured. This type is characteristic of a peculiar spe- 

 cies, which M. Duvernoy describes as new, under the name of S. 

 Hermanni. 



After attentively considering the characters assigned by M. Du- 

 vernoy to his three types respectively, it was easy to ascertain to 

 which of them the species of Sorex hitherto described as natives of 

 this country by our own naturalists, belonged. The result of the 

 examination was, — -Jirst, that we have no British species, as yet 

 identified, possessing the characters of his first type, and that there- 

 fore the S. araneus of English authors is not the same as the S. 

 araneus of the Continent ; — secondly, that the species to which it 

 has been the custom here to apply that name, belongs to his second 

 type HvDROiOREX; — thirdly, that neither is the S.fodiens of this 

 country, judging from all the specimens I had seen, identical with 

 the S.fodiens of Pallas, or at any rate of Duvernoy, but that it 

 associates, in respect to its dentition, with the S. Hermanni of the 

 author last mentioned under his third type Amphisorkx. 



With the view of establishing these points, which may cause a 

 little surprise with some of our naturalists, I beg to direct attention 

 to the structure of the teeth in each of the several species of the genus 

 Sorex hitherto met with in Great Britain. 



S. araneus. (Of English Authors.) 

 That this was probably not the same as the S. araneus of the 

 continent, I ventured to suggest in the Manual of British Verte- 

 brate Animals, from the circumstance of our species having the 

 teeth coloured, which had been said by GeofFroy, in his description 

 of the one found in France, to be white.* Mr Bell thought that 

 Geoffroy's statement was erroneous, and that there was not suffi- 

 cient ground for the above opinion, t It would seem, nevertheless, 

 to be fully confirmed by Duvernoy, who, moreover, notes this cha- 

 racter as one of those particularly distinguishing his first subgenus. 

 But were this not so, and were we entirely to disregard the colour 

 of the teeth, their number and structure would at once serve to se- 

 parate our own araneus from the species bearing the same name 

 on the continent. 



The following description is that of the dentition of our common 

 shrew, and applies to every specimen I have as yet examined. 

 The entire number of teeth is twenty in the upper jaw, and twelve 



* See Man. p. 17, Note. f Brit. Quad. p. 110. 



