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I.—The British Fossil Shrews
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
Extract
Remains of Shrews have long been known to occur in the Norfolk ‘Forest Bed’, and have been discovered in several British Pleistocene deposits. Hitherto they have been referred to one or other of the three species at present inhabiting this country, but having had occasion lately to examine nearly all the available material, comprising representative series of specimens from each of the known horizons, I find that it is not until we reach the latest Pleistocene deposits that we meet with, remains of species indistinguishable, with the material before us, from the living British forms.
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References
page 529 note 1 Dobson, , Proc. Zool. Soc, 1890, p. 49Google Scholar. Winge, suggested this classification many years before (vidensk. Med. Nat. Foren. Kjöbenhavn, 1877, p. 138)Google Scholar.
page 529 note 2 The best account of the skull of the Shrews and of their relationships is to be found in the following works of Winge: “Om Muldvarpens og Spidsmusenes Cranier og Spidsmusenes systematiske Stilling,” Vidensk. Med. Nat. Foren. Kjöbenhavn, 1877, p. 115Google Scholar; “Om Græske Pattedyr,” ibid., 1881 (1882), p. 12; “Pattedyr,” Danmarks Fauna, 1908, pp. 14–16, 22–7Google Scholar.
page 529 note 3 Owen, , Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. iii, p. 306, 1868Google Scholar.
page 530 note 1 Cuvier, , Leçons d'Anatomie Comparée, 2nd ed., t. ii, p. 323, 1837Google Scholar.
page 530 note 2 Winge, , Vidensk. Med. Nat. Foren. Kjöbenhavn, 1877, pp. 119, 121, etcGoogle Scholar.
page 530 note 3 Parker, , “On the Structure and Development of the Mammalian Skull.”— Part III, Insectivora: Phil. Trans., pt. i, pp. 213–15, pi. xxxi, figs. 3, 3a, 10, cd.p., gl.c, 1885Google Scholar.
page 530 note 4 Parker, , op. cit., p. 217Google Scholar, pi. xxxi, figs. 2, 3.
page 530 note 5 Winge, , op. cit., p. 134, fig. 6Google Scholar; Parker, , op. cit., p. 217Google Scholar.
page 530 note 6 Notwithstanding the fact observed by E. Brandt, viz. that the premaxilla holds four teeth, I prefer to follow Winge and regard the last of these teeth as the canine, and not as inc. 4 —a tooth quite unknown among Plaeentalia. The premaxilla has grown that it may accommodate the enlarged first incisor, and in so doing it has embraced the vestigial canine. There is nothing more remarkable in this than there is in the fact that the upper incisor of most rodents bursts through the premaxilla behind and attains a seat in the maxilla. The transgression in either case receives a physiological explanation (see Winge, , “Jordfundne og Nulevende Pungdyr fra Lagoa Santa,” E Museo Lundi, ii (11), p. 122, Anm. 39, 1893Google Scholar; Vidensk. Med. Nat. Foren. Kjöbenhavn, 1881, pp. 12, 13, and 1882, p. 65Google Scholar). I also prefer to write the premolar formula in Hensel's way (“Ueber Hipparion Mediterraneum,” Abhand. königl. Akad. Wisa. Berlin, 1860, p. 78Google Scholar). From the excessive reduction of the tooth here called p. 3 we may infer that the missing tooth in Sorex is p. 2.
page 531 note 1 ‘S.C. B.M.’ means ‘Savin Collection, British Museum’; ‘S.C’ means the more recently formed private collection of Mr. Savin.
page 533 note 1 Warren, , Nature, vol. Ixxxv, p. 206, 1910CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xxii, p. 168, 1911Google Scholar.
page 538 note 1 This specimen is remarkable for the unusually large true molars.
page 539 note 1 Hinton, , Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xxi, p. 497, 1910Google Scholar.
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