INSECTIVORA, ( Insccta,voro,) a group of mammiferous animals, considered by some au thors as a distinct order ; by others, and parti cularly by Cuvier, as a family only of the great carnivorous order, named by that great natura list CARNASSIER.S. The peculiarities of struc ture by which the Insectivora are characterized appear tome to be equally important with those which have led me already to treat of the Choi roptera as an ordinal group, and 1 shall there fore consider them in that point of view.
They consist of four very distinct groups, Such at least appears to me, in the present state of our knowledge, to be a near approach to the natural groups of which the order is composed. In the Talpida I include the ge nera Talpa, Contlyturo, and Chrysochloris ; in the Soricide, the genera Sores, (with the sub genera, so called, into which it has lately been subdivided,) 11Iygale and Scalops, the latter genus being clearly osculant between the Soricide and the Ta/pidd ; in the Erinaceatke, the genera Erinaceus, Echinops, and Centencs ; and in the 2'upaiada, the single genus Tupaia, or Cladobotes, as it is named by Fred. Cuvier. It will at once be seen, by reference to this enumeration of the types of form which occur in this order, that animals, differing greatly in their general structure and habits, are included in it. But it will also be found that they all agree in the general character of their teeth, which are in all instances furnished with ele vated and pointed tubercles, for the purpose of breaking down the hard and polished elytra of coleopterous insects, upon which most of them in a greater or less degree subsist. This cha racter has already been exhibited in the insecti vorous group of the Cheiroptera, which we have considered as leading towards the present order; and even in the lower forms of the Quadru mana a similar tendency is evident, as in the Maki, the Loris, and others. They agree, also, in being for the most part nocturnal animals, and, with some exceptions, in living under ground, or at least in exhibiting a tendency to such a mode of life; and all those which in habit the colder countries pass the winter in a state of torpidity. They all possess clavicles ; their limbs are generally short, and they are plantigrade. They have ventral mamma?, he
stomach is perfectly simple, and they are desti tute of a =cum.
The different families which I have named are as well characterized by their habits as by their external form, and their more intimate structure. The Talpithe, the teeth of which are shewn in the genus Talpa (fig. 441,) and Chry sochloris (fig. 450), which are pre-eminently subterranean, are distinguished by their extra ordinary habits of forming long and complicated burrows underground, passing their whole lives in a subterranean retreat, in which they are born, feed, breed, hibernate, and die ; and which re treat, in the case of the common mole, is formed with the utmost art, and a beautifully complica ted construction. The Sorieidee (fig. 449) are a sort of carnivorous mice; and although they do not actually burrow, retreat durino. the winter, and in their ordinary repose, into 'holes, feed ing, however, on the surface or in the water, several of them being partially aquatic, diving with facility after aquatic insects, and remain ing without difficulty a long time under water. In both these families there is a peculiar cha racter in the structure of the hair, which favours the habits I have mentioned, and which will be presently described. In the Erinaccadcs (see fig. 451) we still have hibernating animals, but these, instead of burrowing or descending into deep excavations, conceal themselves only under leaves, or in any superficial hollow, and live upon food which they either find upon the sur face or dig out of the ground with their bard moveable muzzle ; the character of their integu ment is very peculiar, the hair being modified into spines of a greateror less degree of firmness, and the animals being mostly capable of rolling themselves into a ball, and thus presenting a panoply of sharp spines to their enemies. The last-named group, which I have named Tupai oder, (fig. 452) partake, as before observed, of the character of the Insectivorous Quadru mane; living in trees, which they climb with all the agility of a monkey or a squirrel. They consist but of a single genus, named by the late Sir Stamford Raffles, fupaia, of which three species are well distinguished. They are na tives of Java.