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Show 1866.] DR. J. E. GRAY ON THE SPECIES OF PORCUPINES. 309 South Africa (Peters; B.M., skin); Southern Europe, Portugal (B.M., stuffed skin and skull). I am not aware of any external characters by which this species can be distinguished from the Hystrix cristata, though the skull is so different; indeed I am daily more convinced that there are three classes of species. The most numerous class consists of those which can be distinguished by their external and their osteological characters; others can only be distinguished by their osteological characters,the outer appearance being common to two or more species; and, thirdly, there are species which are very different externally, but which have skeletons that are so similar that they would not be distinguishable except for the external differences,-that is, speaking of the adult animal. But there are also species, as I have shown this evening respecting the South-American Tortoises, which are only to be distinguished when the animals are studied in all their ages-for example, which are to be distinguished in their young, but not in their adult age, or vice versa. M. de Blainville regards all the Crested Porcupines as a single species ; for he represents the skulls with the wide and the narrow in-termaxillaries all under the name of H. cristata of Algeria, Caffraria, Senegal, Syria, Europe, and Bengal, the Bengal and Syrian skull being Hystrices, and the others Acanthia, or rather (Edocephali. If the figures are accurate copies of the skulls, the hinder part of the intermaxillaries in the specimen figured from Senegal is wider than in that from Caffraria; but the skull from Algeria seems to be intermediate in form between the other two. Dr. Peters, in his description of his H. africar australis, in the 'Reise nach Mossambique,' p. 170, published in 1852, entirely overlooks the fact that the skull figured by Schreber, Cuvier, and several other authors is exactly similar to the one he figures, and to which he gives a new name-overlooking also m y paper in the ' Proc. Zool. Soc' for 1847, where the distinctions are pointed out. Dr. Sclater, when describing the Orange-spined Porcupine (H. ma-labarica) in the ' Proc. Zool. Soc' 1865, p. 356, gives a list of four species of Crested Porcupines. He separates H. malabarica from H. leucura of Sykes, and in the synonymy of the latter species has most erroneously included the Hystrix cristata of m y Monograph, which is found in Europe and North Africa and is very distinct externally (by the length and form of the spines) from the Indian species. On the other hand, he has separated the Acanthion cuvieri of m y Monograph (from Europe and Africa) as distinct from the H. africar australis of Peters, from South Africa, which I do not think he would have done if he had examined and compared carefully the skulls and stuffed specimens of the animals in the British Museum Collection. 2. ACANTHOCHCERUS. The nape with a short, thin, compressed crest, formed of a few short spines. The skull elongate ; crown slightly arched. The nasal bones broad, truncated behind, reaching to the front of the orbit. The spines of the front part of the body flat, subtriangular, grooved. The dorsal spines cylindrical, white, with a single central black ring. |
