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Show 1875.] MR. E. R. ALSTON ON THE GENUS ANOMALURUS. 89 having similar habits, climbing lofty trees, and passing by a great sailing bound from the summit to another stem ; in ascending a tree the caudal scales are pressed against the trunk and thus serve as " climbing-irons." But Mr. Waterhouse pointed out, in his original description, that the genus differs not only from the Flying Squirrels, but from all the other Sciuridce, in many important characters of the skull and dentition-notably in the large size of the infraorbital opening, the almost entire absence of postorbital processes, the contraction and emargination of the bony palate, and the number and appearance of the grinding-teeth. Since its discovery, zoologists have held very various views as to the true affinities of the Anomalure. Mr. Waterhouse regarded it as an aberrant Squirrel, showing an approach to the Dormice*. Dr. Gray took the same view, placing it at the head of the Sciurina, immediately following the Myoxinai\. Temminck treated Anomalurus as a subgenus of Pteromys, and first gave some account of the skeleton^, which was more fully described by Gervais§, and figured in the posthumous part of De Blainville's ' Osteographie'||. According to the views which M . Gervais then held, the subfamily Anomulurina had no real relationship to the Squirrels, but should be ranked among the Hystricidce, next to Capromyna-an arrangement to which Giebel^[ and Burmeister** gave their adherence. Brandt first placed the Anomalures as the third tribe of his family Sciuroides, under the name of Anomaluri seu Pteromyoxosciuri, as indicating their relationship-)-)-, but subsequently proposed another classification, in which they formed the first subfamily, named Anomalurini seu Sciuri Lemuriformes, as showing an approach to the Lemurs, through Galeopithecus, in the structure of their toes and claws'^. M. Gervais has since withdrawn from his first position as to the hystricine affinities of the animal, but, still holding that it is not a Squirrel, unites it with the Dormice and the miocene genera Theridomys and Archeeomys in his " famille des Myoxides"§§. In this he has been followed by Dr. Fitzinger || ||. Prof. Lilljeborg placed Anomalurina as a subfamily of Sciuridce showing an approach to the Hystricomorpha of Brandt %%; and more recently he retains this arrangement, but suggests that the form should probably rank as a distinct family***. This last view is shared by Dr. Gill, who makes the Anomaluridce a family equal in value to the Sciuridce, and places it between the latter and the Haploodontidee-fff. * Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. x. p. 202 (1842). t List M a m m . Brit. Mus. p. 133 (1843). t Esquisses Zoologiques, pp. 143-146 (1853). § Ann. Scien. Nat. (3e ser.) xx. pp. 238-246, pl. xiii. (1853). | Atlas, iv. Sciurus, pl. i. (1855). ^ Allgemeine Zoologie, p. 485 (1854). ** Thiere Braziliens, Th. i. p. 341 (1854). tt Mem. de l'Ac. St. Petersb. (6e ser.), Sc. Nat. vii. pp. 298, 299 (1855). tt Compt. Eend. Ac. Scien. xliii. pp. 139-143 (1856). §§ Zoologie et Paleontologie Franchises (2e ed.) pp. 27-30 (1859). || || Sitzungsb. Ak. Wissensch. Wien, lv. (erste Abth.) p. 511 (1867). *^[ Syst. CEfv. de Gnagande Daggdjuren, pp. 38, 40 (1866). *** Sveriges och Norges Eyggradsdjur, i. p. 383 (1874). ttt Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, xi. p. 21 (1874). |
