188 
GEOGRAPHICAL ZOOLOGY. 
[PART IV. 
Oriental regions ; but they only occur in the Ethiopian region in 
South Africa and in the Deserts of the north, which more properly 
belong to the Pal se arctic region. They are absent from the 
Malayan, and also from the Indo-Chinese Sub-regions ; except 
that they extend from the north of China to Amoy and Formosa 
and into the temperate highlands of the Western Himalayas. 
The curious Gymnura (1 species) is found in Borneo, Sumatra, 
and the Malay peninsula. 
Extinct Species. — The common hedgehog has been found fossil 
in several Post-tertiary deposits, while extinct species occur in 
the lower Miocene of Auvergne and in some other parts of 
Europe. Many of these remains are classed in different genera 
from the living species ; — ( Amphechinus , Tetmcus, Galerix .) 
Family 18. — CENTETIDAL (6 Genera, 10 Species.) 
General Distribution. 
Neotropical 
Sub-regions. 
Nearctic 
Sub-regions. 
Palaearctjc 
Sub-regions, 
Ethiopian j 
Sub-regions. 
Oriental 
Sub- regions. 
Australian 
Sub-regions. 
4 
! I 
4 
The Centetidse are small animals, many of them having a 
spiny covering, whence the species of Centetes have been called 
Madagascar hedgehogs. The genera Centetes (2 species), Hemi- 
centetes (1 species), Ericulus (1 species), Echinops (3 species), and 
the recently described Oryzorictes (1 species), are all exclusively 
inhabitants of Madagascar, and are almost or quite tail-less, 
'the remaining genus, Solenodon, is a more slender and active 
animal, with a long, rat-like tail, shrew-like head, and coarse fur ; 
and the two known species are among the very few indigenous 
mammals of the West Indian islands, one being found in Cuba 
(Plate XVII., vol. ii, p. 67), the other in Hayti. Although 
presenting many points of difference in detail, the essential 
characters of this curious animal are, according to Professors 
Peters and Mivart, identical with the rest of the Centetidse, 
We have thus a most remarkable and well-established case of 
discontinuous distribution, two portions of the same family 
