Part 34

Footnote 13:

D’Orbigny says, (vol. ii. p. 69,) that all the species of the genus have this habit.

Footnote 14:

Figures 47 and 48 of M. Cuvier’s work represent horns so unlike either of those brought over by Mr. Darwin, that I cannot help suspecting they belong to some other species of stag.

Footnote 15:

The MS. name of M. decumanoïdes, which I had applied to this animal, has been changed, in consequence of my having seen a different species, with the same name attached, in the museum of the India House.

Footnote 16:

The great Bandicoot rat of India, (Mus giganteus, of Hardwicke,) ought, perhaps, to be added to the species above enumerated; and I strongly suspect several catalogued species will prove but varieties of this animal.

Footnote 17:

See Proceedings of the Zoological Society for February 14th, 1837, p. 19.

Footnote 18:

As I shall have occasion to use the terms moderate, long, short, large, &c. it may be well to state that I take the common mouse, (Mus Musculus,) as my standard of comparison. The ears, feet, tail, length of the fur, general proportions, &c. are in that animal what I term moderate.

Footnote 19:

A long tarsus is generally accompanied by a proportionately long tail. I presume that those Mice which have long tarsi are in the habit of making great leaps, and that in these leaps, the tail serves to steady and balance the body.

Footnote 20:

In Mus leucopus of North America the tarsus is hairy beneath, and in the character of the teeth this animal also agrees with the species above mentioned.

Footnote 21:

The dimensions given in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society were taken from a younger specimen than those here described, and there is an error in the length of the tail there given, which should be 1–10 instead of 2—10.

Footnote 22:

In Mus longipilis and M. brachiotis may be perceived an approach to this elongated form of the muzzle.

Footnote 23:

I am sorry to say the artist has not drawn this skull with his usual fidelity, a circumstance which I did not perceive until it was too late to make any alteration: it is too large, and the incisors are represented as projecting forwards too much; they are in the original so nearly at right angles with the upper surface of the skull that but a very small portion of them is seen, when it is viewed, as represented at fig. 3, a.

Footnote 24:

It is not easy to measure the width of the ears in these animals: upon measuring with a thread over the curve of the outer side I have found the width of the ears of the present animal to be as above given,—the dimension slightly exceeding that stated in the Proceedings of the Zool. Soc.

Footnote 25:

Ρειθρος, a channel; Οδον, a tooth.

Footnote 26:

The tail is imperfect.