Guide to the galleries of mammals in the Department of Zoology of the British Museum.

  • British Museum (Natural History). Department of Zoology.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Guide to the galleries of mammals in the Department of Zoology of the British Museum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/146 page 58
    [Case 12.' 1 Case VL] [ Cases ii; 11A IIB.] what is called a town. Frequently they have to share their home with weasels, burrowing-owls, and rattlesnakes. 1 The Squirrels (Sciu7ms, kc.) form the largest group of the present family, distributed over the whole world, with the exception of the Australian region. They range in size from species more than a foot in length, such as the Purple Giant Squirrel, Ratufa indica (682), of India, down to others scarcely larger than Mice, as, for example, the Black-eared Squirrel, yannosciimis melanotis, and the Pigmy Squirrel, Ax exilis (671), of Borneo. Squirrels are generally bright-coloured, and vary in an extraordinary degree, as may be gathered from an exairdnation of the instructive series of Scimnfs liyi^opyrrhus (691 to 715), the Grizzled Squirrel. This species is ornamented with patches or bands of white, yellow, grey, brown, and black, in every combination, each variety passing, by insensible gradations, into the next. Specimens of the Common Squirrel, S. vulgaris (678), exhibit some of the local and seasonal variations observable in this species ; and attention may be directed to the tine series of foreign Squirrels in the case. The beautiful Groove-toothed Squirrel of Borneo is made the type of the distinct genus Rkitliroscmrus (669) on account of its grooved upper incisors. The Beavers, Castoindce (case VI), are distinguished by the Hat and scaly tail, webbed hind-feet, and soft thick fur. The incisor teeth are of remarkable strength and sharpness, and with them their owners are able to gnaw through the trunks of largo trees, which they require tor the construction of dams, in a short space of time. These interesting animals are rapidly becoming exterminated, owing to the great demand for their fur, so that whereas they formerly inhabited the whole of Northern Europe, Asia, and America, they are now to be found only in a few isolated localities in the most inaccessible parts of their proper range. Many naturalists regard the American Beaver as specifically distinct from the European, Castor fiber (756), and name it Castor canadensis (757); a group of the latter is shown in one of the bays. The Myomorpha, or Rat section (cases 11, 11 A, and 11 B), ’ contains numerous genera and a vast number of species, spread
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