INTRODUCTION. 



With the present part the List of Fossil Mammalia now represented 

 in the collection of the Museum is completed ^ The Supplement 

 issued herewith comprises all specimens that have been acquired 

 since the date of publication of the parts in which they should 

 properly have been recorded, as well as some of which the affinity 

 or serial position had not been determined at the time when such 

 parts were written, and also certain others which after the trans- 

 ference of the collection from Eloomsbury had been deposited in 

 drawers out of their proper serial position, and thus escaped notice. 

 The specimens are recorded in about 9820 entries, but many of 

 such entries include more than a single specimen. The named 

 species (omitting one or two which have been subsequently found to 

 be synonyms) are 719 in number, and are arranged under 301 generic 

 and 100 family headings — 106 out of the total being regarded as 

 indistinguishable from existing forms. Allowing for the above- 

 mentioned cases of synonymy (which are noticed in the sequel), it 

 may be affirmed that among the better-known forms the list of 

 genera and species does not err on the side of redundancy, the 

 writer having endeavoured as far as possible in this respect to follow 

 the lead of the Director of the Museum in not recognizing such as 

 are founded upon trivial characters ^. In imperfectly known forms, 

 however, this rule cannot be enforced, and it may eventually be 

 found that among the smaller forms, and in groups like the Tertiary 



^ The specimen belonging to the so-called Antilope torticomis, Aymard, from 

 the Pliocene of Auvergue, noticed by Eiitimeyer in his " Kinder der Tertiar- 

 Epoche," Abh. schw. pal. Ges., pp. 84-85, as being in the Museum, cannot be 

 identified with any specimen in the collection. 



^ See Preface to ' List of Cetacea in the British Museum ' (1885). 



