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II. On the Structure and Development of the SJcull in the Mammalia .— 
Part III. Insectivora. 
By William Kitchen Parker. F.R.S. 
Received January 15,-—Read January 29, 1885. 
[Plates 16—39.] 
The skull in this low group of placental Mammals ( Eutheria ) is of great interest, 
and, knowing this, I have lost no opportunity, for many years past, of procuring 
specimens of all sorts, and of all ages and stages. The native kinds, namely, the 
Hedgehog, Mole, and Shrew, form perhaps, on the whole, as instructive a group as 
could be found anywhere; they are related, and yet distantly, and the Mole comes in 
well between the generalised Hedgehog and the very specialised Shrew. 
I have been able to follow the Hedgehog and the Mole through a large series of 
stages, and the Shrew in four—so that these native kinds will now have the history 
of their skull fairly written out. But the exotic kinds of Insectivora do not yield a 
jot, in interest, to those familiar to us here ; these I have been less fortunate in 
procuring. Yet I think that I can now offer to the Society a sufficiently detailed 
account to serve, by the help of the more exhaustive account of the skull in the 
native kinds, to give a clear idea of the morphology of the skull in the more important 
Families of this most instructive Order. 
Any chance of my ever staying my hand from working at the Insectivora, and 
getting to work at other Orders, has simply arisen from failure of further materials, 
as to embryos and early young, so absorbing did the study of these types become. 
The materials'”' for this present paper have largely poured in during the last three 
or four years ; although I have been collecting, as opportunity has served, for a long 
time, many of my specimens have been waiting for twenty years, and some were 
prepared forty years ago. 
Yet I feel now, more than ever, that any attempt at working out the morphology 
of the Mammalian type of skull would have been premature if I had not devoted 
much time to the lower types of skull seen in the oviparous Vertebrata. 
* Mj hearty thanks are due to my friends for these, namely, to Messrs. Carpenter, Cunningham, 
Dobson, Gunther, Walter Heape, T. Rupert Jones, J. Murray, R. Major, Nokgate, Penrose, South- 
well, G. West, and Professor Moseley. 
MDCCCLXXXV. R 
