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Show 1901.] MAMMALS OF THE BALEARIC ISLANDS. 39 the body is very white, and quite different to what we are accustomed to see in our British Hedgehog. In the length and detailed coloration of the spines, and in the various cranial characteristics which Dobson and de Winton have described as distinguishing E. algirus from E. europceus, our Balearic specimens agree entirely with the former. Dimensions of the type, an old male, the largest of the series, measured in the flesh :- Head and body 250 mm., tail 40, hind foot 37, ear 33. Skull-greatest length from condyle to gnathion 53f8 mm.; basal length 51 ; zygomatic breadth 33 ; nasals, greatest (diagonal) length 16-5; interorbital breadth 17 ; intertemporal breadth 1 4; palate, length 32, breadth outside m.1 22, inside m.1 10-5. The corresponding greatest length of a rather younger skull of E. algirus typicus is 59 m m . Type. Male, B.M. No. 0.7.1.36; original number 287; killed 10th April, 1900, at San Cristobal, Minorca. The specimen selected as the type was brought to us with half a dozen others, and was considered by the natives as decidedly larger than usual. No doubt the persecution these animals undergo, owing to their edibility, tends to kill them off before they have the chance of attaining a good old age. On the other hand, no very young ones were met with, our smallest skull (§ ) measuring 48*5 m m . in greatest length. The range of Erinaceus algirus is now shown to extend over North Africa from Tripoli westwards to Marocco, and in Europe from Andalucia to the eastern island of the Balearic archipelago. En Spain its exact distribution still remains to be worked out, aud, especially, its geographical relationship to E. europceus, which, in the subspecies E. a. hispanicus B. Ham., occurs as far south as Seville. 12. CROCIDURA RUSSULA Herm. a-c. San Cristobal, Minorca. The Garden Shrew is said by Barcelo to be very rare in Majorca, and this assertion is borne out by our catching none in that island and only three in Minorca; for when present it is easily trapped, and at Cintra in Portugal I captured as many as I wished of the same species. By such natives as were observant enough to kuow it at all, it was called " Eata aranera," while the Castilian name for it is " Musaraiia." W e failed either to catch or hear of the Southern Pigmy Shrew, Pachyura etrusca. It may also be safely asserted that neither the Water-Shrew (Neomys fodiens) nor the Common Shrew (Sorex araneus) occur in the islands. The Mole is also entirely absent. 13. FELIS CATUS L. Majorca and Iviza (Barcelo). Does not occur in Miuorca. |