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Show 228 DR. J. ANDERSON ON ASIATIC SHREWS. [Mar. 4, which have been described from Ceylon by Kelaart, and to those which have been distinguished by Blyth as occurring in Burmah, the Malayan peninsula, and China. All the species referred by Blyth * to the genus Sorex, Linnaeus, which I have examined, are white-toothed Shrews, his species S. melanodon being essentially a white-toothed form, to which I shall hereafter have occasion to allude. They belong to 16 species, from the following countries, viz. India proper, Burmah, the Malayan peninsula, and Ceylon. Besides these, 13 other species have been described from Madras, the North-west Himalayan, Nepaul, Sikkim, and Ceylon, all of them apparently white-toothed forms. If we analyze these materials, we shall find that one species, Pachyura indica, Geoff., is generally distributed over India, that P. murina, Linn., and P. serpentaria, Geoff., of Blyth and Jerdon f, occur in the Malayan countries and Southern India, and that the former passes into Lower Bengal, and that the latter is said to extend to Ceylon, and even to the Mauritius. One minute species, the P. melanodon, Blyth, has been described from Lower Bengal, and two species from the Nilgiris. Three species, Sorex heterodon, Blyth, S. atratus, Blyth, and P. griffithii, Horsf, occur in the Khasya hills, tht last extending into Aracan. Burmah and the Tenasserim provinces are characterized by two small Shrews, Crocidura fuliginosa, Blyth, and P. nudipes, Blyth, and Ceylon by six other species, besides P. serpentaria, already mentioned : -viz., C. kelaarti, Blyth ; S. macropus, Blyth; S. ferrugineus, Kelaart; A montanus, Kelaart; S. purpurascens, Templeton ; and S. horsfieldi, Tomes The Himalayan, between longitudes 78° and 90° east, have yielded no less than 10 species of Shrews, eight of which were originally distinguished by Hodgson, and the remaining two by Blyth. They are as follows :- <S. soccatus, Hodg.; P. nemorivaga, Hodg. ; S. leucopus, Hodg. ; S. saturatior, Hodg.; S. sikimensis, Hodg.; S. homurus, Hodg.; S.oligurus, Hodg.; <S. macrurus, Hodg.; A hodgsoni, Blyth; and A tytleri, Blyth. To these I must add the Himalayan Water-Shrew, which is a Crocidura, and two other Shrews with brown-tipped teeth, viz. Crossopus nigrescens, Gray, and Crossopus alpinus, Schweig. ; so that the total number of the Himalayan Shrews is 13 in all, 11 belonging to the group with wholly white teeth, and two to the other division, distinguished by its brown-tipped teeth. In connexion with the number of species, it is noteworthy that four out of Blyth's species are founded on single specimens, that one was described from a headless individual, that his C. kelaarti is so young that the premaxillary suture is intact between the second and third small lateral teeth-that his P. melanodon is based on a very young specimen, with the premaxillary suture intact above, but obliterated as it approaches the alveolar border-and that all the other sutures of the skull are unclosed, the frontal and fronto-parietal sutures being almost * Blyth has also indicated three other species from the Himalayan, As. Soc. Journ. vol. xxviii. p. 285. t Jerdon's ' Mammals of India' (Cal.). |