| OCR Text |
Show 1016 MR. OLDFIELD THOMAS ON THE [Dec. 15, D. MYOMORPHA. V. Gliridse. A. GLIRIN^E. 16. Gils1, Briss. Regne Animal, p. 160 (1750). [Myoxus, Schr. Sang. iv. p. 824(1792).] 17. Muscardlnus, Kaup. Entw. europ. Thierw. p. 139 (1829). 18. Ellomys, Wagn. Abb. Ak. Munch, iii. p. 176 (1843). [Blfa, Latr. Le Nat. 1885.] 19. Graphiurus, P. Cuv. & Geoffr. H. N. Mamm. (fol.) livr. 60 (1845). B. PLATACANTHOMYIN.E . 20. Platacanthomys, Bly. J. A. S. B. xxviii. p. 288 (1859). 21. Ttmhlomys, M.-Edw. * Bull. Soc. Philom. (6) xi. p. 9 (1877). similar words, inquiry among pure classicists (other than zoologists) elicits the opinion that the Latins were so careless and irregular themselves in this respect, that it is impossible to make a hard-and-fast rule about it, and that we should therefore accept the original aspiration or non-aspiration of scientific names. Personally I look with loathing on these h-lesa names, but I feel bound to recognize that it is not right to alter words formed by authors who Latinized their Greek in the very way that the Latins themselves sometimes did. 1 See Merriam, ' Science,' 1895, p. 376. 2 Dr. Winge has replaced Platacanthomys in the Gliridse, from which it was removed to the Muridae by Dr. Peters, and in this he has been followed by Dr. Tullberg ; and I a m informed by Dr. Forsyth Major, to w h o m I am indebted for much assistance in the preparation of the present paper, that be also holds tbe same view. On the whole, although I think there is enough evidence of Murine afiinity in Platacanthomys and its ally Typhlomys to make the question rather doubtful, I a m inclined to agree to the reference of these genera to the family Gliridae, on account of the structure of their teeth and interorbital region, the peculiar glirine twisting of their mandibular angles, and of their (or at least the former's) want of a caecum-a character found in the Gliridae alone of the Rodents, and one which I a m now able to record for the first time in Platacanthomys. _ ( As to their position within the family, I venture to think that Winge s combination of them into Glis, Eliomys, and Muscardinus, in a group set over as a whole against Graphiurus, is quite astonishingly unnatural, and is evidently due to the exaggerated value he gives to bis pet character of the ante-orbital structures. The Platacanthomyinw form by themselves a very natural subfamily, set over against the Dormice ; while even among the latter it might be quite as correct to separate Glis and Muscardinus on the one side from Eliomys and Graphiurus on the other by the pattern of tbe teeth, as to separate the last-named from the rest by the structure of the anteorbital region. An interesting example of the occasional variability of the last-named character is given by Blarinomys, which, obviously a modified offshoot of Acodon and Oxymycterus, has an anteorbital region not at all unlike that of Graphiurus. |
