AFRICAN COAST-RAT. 
Though we have been hastily betrayed, 
by modern naturalists, into an adoption of the 
name of Coast-Rat, for this animat; we are, 
on reflection, inclined to consider this appel- 
lation as by no means sufficiently expressive of 
it's nature, which greatly approxiinates to that 
of the Mole. 
In the synonimes collected by Dr. Shaw, 
for his recent publication of General Zoology, 
that gentleman, who calls this animal simply 
the Coast-Rat, gives it as the Mus' Maritimus 
of Gmelin's Edition of the Systema Naturse of 
Linnsus; whereas Mr. Kerr, in his excellent 
Translation of the Mammalia of Linn^us, 
presents it, with what appears to us superior 
propriety, as the Mus Myotalpa Maritima, or 
African Mole-Rat. 
Perliaps, were we strictly to pursue our own 
inclination, instead of exactly adopting either 
of these names, or any other which it has yet 
received from travellers or naturalists^ we might 
form 
