Lect. VII.] MASCAKENE TYPES. 167 



liope to obtain the embryos or at least the young, as it 

 is one of the most instructive of these mixed or general- 

 ised forms. Of the Centetidse or Tenrec fimiily the 

 largest is the Tenrec, proper ; it is Larger than the Hedge- 

 hog, and has scarcely any tail ; but, like the aquatic AVliale, 

 its head is about one-third the length of its body. It is 

 armed with spines, and during the wet and cold months 

 it sleeps, as the Hedgehog does here ; those months, 

 corresponding in time to our summer, as Mr Dallas 

 tells us,^ are the wintry months of Madagascar. Besides 

 this kind, of which I have been able to work out 

 several stages, I have studied the skull in its sul*- 

 adult stao'e in three of the lesser kinds of Centetida3, 

 namely, Ericulus, Hemicentetes, and Microgcde ; the 

 latter is as small as our common Shrew. Every one ih 

 aware that the straits of Mozaml:)ique separate Faunie 

 and Florae that seem to bear very little relation to each 

 other ; the South Eastern African types, and the 

 Mascarene types, whether of plants or animals, are ver}' 

 diverse from each other. 



These Mascarene Insectivora are quite unlike the 

 forms found at or near Zanzibar, and in the South 

 African region generally ; there the Elephant-Shrews, 

 rightly named, and tlie Ehynchocyon, their relation, are 

 extremely unlike the Tenrecs, and are indeed a sort of 

 half Opossum, with a proboscis. The Tenrecs agree witli 

 the Hedgehogs in having a pneumatic skull-base, and with 



1 CassclVs Natural History, Xo. 12, p. 360. 



