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Show 70 MR. O. THOMAS ON THE [Jan. 5, grizzled grey, very much as in P. brucei. Posterior back not tinged with rufous. Belly white or yellowish. Dorsal spot inconspicuous, nearly hidden by the surrounding hairs, but on separating these it is seen to be well-developed, elongate, its hairs white or pale yellow to their bases. Skull1 light and slender, with a narrow elongated muzzle and flattened frontal region. Parietal, interparietal, and coronal sutures closing at about stage V., always closed in adult animals. Diastema long, about 13 m m . in adults. Teeth small and delicate, markedly brachyodont; breadth of ^ 5'6 to 6-4 ; height of crown of m3. about 4'5. P1 elongate, two-rooted, long, persistent, its crown about 3*7 or 3*9 m m . long. Type in British Museum (68. 12. 19. 3). Hab. Angola ("region moyenne, et les hauts plateaux," Bocage). The retention of this species as distinct from P. brucei rests on very much the same, rather slender, foundation that the separation from it of P. latastei does, namely the age at which the interparietal sutures ordinarily close. This seems to take place in P. brucei at about stage II., in P. bocagei at stage V., and in P. latastei never, or at least not until fully adult life is reached. The longer and slenderer muzzle of P. bocagei and its more developed p1 may also serve to distinguish it from both, which then, the intermediate link being gone, seem more than ever distinct by their interparietal characters. 10. PROCAVIA BRUCEI. Hyrax brucei, Gray, Ann. Mag. N. H. (4) i. p. 44 (1868) ; Cat. p. 287 (1869) (excl. syn.-not of later authors2). Dendrohyrax blainvillei, Gray, Ann. Mag. N. H. (4) i. p. 50 (1868); Cat. p. 293 (1869). Hyrax irroratus, Gray, Ann. Mag. N. H. (4) iii. p. 242 (1869) (excl. description of dorsal spot3) ; Cat. p. 288 (1869). Hyrax mossambicus, Peters, SB. nat. Fr., 1869, p. 25. Dendrohyrax bakeri, Gray, Ann. Mag. N. H. (4) xiv. p. 132 (1874). Size small; forms lender. Mammse 1-2 = 6. Fur short and close, but fine and generally soft. Colour clear grey, finely grizzled with white; underfur pale silvery fawn, rather * darker basally. Posterior back generally quite similar to the rest, very rarely more rufous, and then only just above the anal region. Dorsal spot narrow, elongated, white or yellow, the hairs often white at base and becoming more fulvous terminally, but never with any admixture of brown. 1 Good figures: Gray, Hand-1. Edent. &c. pi. xi. fig. 2 (1873); Bocage t. c. pi. i. 2 Nor of the same author's Hand-1. Edent. &c. p. 40 (1873), where the great majority of the specimens mentioned, and the figured skull, belong to P. abyssinica. 3 By some curious error the descriptions of the dorsal spots of " H irroratus " and "H. ferruyincus" were interchanged in Gray's original paper, but the error was corrected in the " Catalogue " published shortly afterwards. |