FOSSIL REMAINS OF INSECTIVORA. 
383 
deserts, through Asia Minor and Persia, and across Central Asia to the Pacific Coast, whilst one or 
two species occur in South Africa, and one very aberrant form, the Bulau (Gymmra), is found in the 
Malayan region, along with the Bangsrings, to which it is allied through the genus Hylomys. The 
true Moles and the Shrews occur in the northern parts of both hemispheres, and the latter family, 
indeed, as represented in all parts of the world except South America and the Australian region. The 
Desmans, which stand in so peculiar a position between the Shrews and the Moles, present a curious 
instance of what has been called “ discontinuous distribution,” the two nearly allied species beino* 
found only in two localities, separated from each other by the whole breadth of the European con- 
tinent. The entire absence of Insectivora from the South American continent, and the presence of 
the Solenodons, which seem to be most nearly related to the Centetidre of Madagascar, in Cuba and 
St. Domingo, are further remarkable facts in the geographical distribution of these animals. Scarcely 
less singular is the distribution of the two species of Urotric/ms, one of which occurs in Japan, and 
the other on the Pacific coast of North America. 
The evidence derived from the fossil remains of Insectivora, as to the former history of the order, 
in its bearing upon the present geographical distribution of its members, is very inconclusive ; but the 
principal facts to be gathered from it is that from Miocene times to the present day the representatives 
of the order in different localities, so far as these are known, have generally belonged to the same 
types, and no undoubted remains of Insectivora are known from earlier formations than the Miocene. 
At one time, indeed, some of the beautiful Mammalian fossils of the Stonesfield slate (Lower Oolite) 
of Oxfordshire were regarded as probably representing Insectivora, but their Marsupial character is 
now generally recognised ; and this is the case also with the Dromotheriwm from the Trias of North 
Carolina, which was at one time believed to carry the present order so far back in time. 
Species of the existing genera Erinaceus, Sorex, Myogale , and Talpa, and of several nearly-allied 
extinct genera, have been determined from Miocene and subsequent deposits in various parts of Europe, 
and especially from the lacustrine beds of the Auvergne ; and in North America also a few species have 
been found and referred to genera for the most part almost identical with those still living on that 
continent. In some instances even the Miocene species appear to be nearly identical with those now 
inhabiting the same regions. 
The principal apparent exceptions to this rule are to be found in a fossil species from the Miocene 
of the Auvergne, described by M. Pomel under the name of Echinogale Laurillardi (Centetidas), and 
two forms described by Hermann von Meyer, as forming a new genus (Oxygomphhts), allied to the 
Bangsrings, from the Tertiary basin of Weisenau, in Southern Germany. But the true position of 
these fossils is, to say the least of it, exceedingly doubtful ; and this is still more strikingly the case 
with the Eocene American genus Omomys, supposed to be an animal allied to the Hedgehogs and the 
Bangsrings, but which Professor Leidy himself, in describing it, compares with nearly all the types of 
true Insectivora and with the Opossums. 
This last comparison leads us, perhaps, towards the origin of the Insectivora. In the East, the 
Bangsrings, and notably the beautiful little Ptilocerque, and the curious genus Hylomys , which, again, 
seems to unite the Bangsrings with the Hedgehogs through the anomalous genus Gymnura , present 
manifest relationships with the Phalangers, some of which abound in the islands further to the east. 
From these animals to the time Shrews, many of which abound in the east, is no great step. On the 
other hand, we have already seen that Brandt recognised Opossum-like characters in his Solenodon , 
but it must be confessed that these are almost exclusively external. Professor Leidy describes, 
besides Omomys above referred to, some other fossils from the Eocene of Wyoming, which he seems 
to regard as Insectivorous in habit, but Marsupial in structure; and the Stonesfield Mammals, 
although plainly Marsupial, have Insectivorous tendencies, so that the derivation of the type Insecti- 
vora from the Marsupials, or at all events the near affinity of the two orders, perhaps at several points 
of contact, may be looked upon as established. 
In the other direction the affinities of the order would seem to be through the Shrews, Hedgehogs, 
and Centetidae with the Carnivora, towards which also the curious West African Potamogale seems 
clearly to point. The Bangsrings, again, show some traces of an affinity to the Lemurs ; and 
Galeopithecus seems almost to constitute a central point of alliances, uniting the Insectivora with the 
Lemurs and Bats, and further exhibiting, as Mr. Wallace thinks, certain peculiarities which smack 
