Lect.vl] skull of shrew. 159 



— the Tenrec and liis relatives, as I shall soon show. The 

 occipital region or l^ack of the head, and the interparietal 

 and parietal roof-bones are all large ; but the interorbital 

 region is covered in by frontals, no larger, relatively, 

 than those of a Snake ; the small lachrymals (tear-duct 

 bones) soon lose their distinctness, as do the bones of all 

 the fore part of the head. The space between the base 

 of the skull and the ear-bones is very large, and instead 

 oi foramina lacera, or ragged interspaces between the 

 skull, proper, and the petro-mastoid bones, we have a 

 considerable space, right and left, merely membranous. 

 Above and behind the long narrow squamosal there 

 is a bony tract, as in the Mole, which is ossified by the 

 j)etrosum, (stony bone, prootic) ; this is the cartilagin- 

 ous skull wall turned into bone, as in the Mole. The 

 hard palate is well formed, and the pterygoid hooks for 

 the muscles of the soft palate, are very small ; the 

 body of the pterygoid bone is swollen and cellular, l)ut 

 the basis-cranii has no caves, or recesses, to increase the 

 size of the ear-drum, as in the Hedgehog and Mole. The 

 lower jaw is a peculiarly elegant structure, and articulates 

 with the squamosal, or temporal bone, in the glenoid 

 fossa (hollow articular space), by two facets — an upper 

 and a lower. The angular process of the mandible is 

 rod-shaped, and is curved inwards at the end, as in 

 Marsupials. In so small a creature as this, the ossi- 

 €ula auditus, or small bones of the middle ear, are 

 relatively larger than in the Mole, although really very 



