| The Insectivora from Madagascar generally belong to forms which are quite distinct from each other, such as the genera Centetes, Oryzoryctes, Geogale, etc., and which have now become the types of separate families and subfamilies. Up to 1848 the large group of Shrews, Soricidae, was looked upon as not inhabiting either Madagascar or the little adjoining islands. At that time Mr. Ch. Coquerel, Surgeon in the French Navy, published a good description and figures of Sorex madagascariensis ¹), a very small Shrew, which he had discovered at Nossi-Bé, on the N. W. Coast of Madagascar. Later in 1855 Dr. Leop. Fitzinger briefly described as Pachyura auriculata ²), a much larger Shrew brought home by Mad. Ida Pfeiffer from her travels in Madagascar. But this... |
