ORYCTERUS CAPENSIS. 237 



Moles from the Cape [of Good Hope {Bathyergus)]. 



The mouth is very small ; the tongue is narrow and thick ; the lateral 

 lips unite across the mouth in both the upper and the lower jaws ; the 

 skin of the roof of the mouth is lost, or terminates forwards in the 

 union of the two upper lips, which is there loose as in the lower jaw. 

 There is no outer or anterior lip to the upper jaw; or, in other words, 

 the two lateral lips do not unite forwards, a structure which is now 

 become a technical term, " Hare lip ;" but there is a union of the 

 lower lips which makes the fore-teeth in the lower jaw to be enclosed, 

 as in a sheath, at their roots, by a lip going all round. 



Both [specimens] have three grinders on each side of both jaws. In 

 the upper they have three fangs, one large, and two small. In the 

 lower they have two fangs, one larger than the other. 



[Orycterus Capensis?] 



Mr. Banks's ( Nick/ brought from Africa by Mr. Mason. 



The hair is thin on the body and strong, of the bristly kind, like that 

 of the agouti ; but the tail has long hair. This animal has no external 

 ears : it has four nipples, two between the hind-legs, and two on the 

 belly pretty near the hind-legs. It has four grinding teeth on each 

 side of each jaw ; they are fanged : those of the upper jaw have three 

 fangs, those of the lower only two. The scalpriform or fore-teeth are 

 not strong, so that this animal seldom bites. In a second specimen the 

 scalpriform teeth were much stronger 1 . 



The stomach is rather round, or very obtuse at the great end. The 

 duodenum, jejunum, and ileum have nothing particidar. The caecum 

 is a short thick gut projecting but a little way beyond the ileum ; it is 

 rounded at the end. The colon passes up the right side, and before it 

 crosses the abdomen it makes a pretty long fold upon itself; as it 

 crosses, it makes another nearly as long ; when it has got to the left it 

 makes another very short one (this was hardly perceptible), and then 

 passes down to the anus. 



The liver is divided into four lobes : the left is the largest ; the 

 second from the left has the ligamentum rotundum, falx, and gall- 

 bladder fixed to it. The lobulus Spigelii is a fifth lobe attached all 

 along its anterior part to the little epiploon, so that the cavity behind 

 the membrane is divided into two. The gall-bladder lies in a notch on 



1 [Tliis may probably have been the Orycterus mariiimus, F. Cuv. ; the Orycterus 

 capensis has smaller incisors.] 



