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Show 640 MR. BLANFORD ON ABYSSINIAN SPECIES OF HYRAX. [Dec. 9, only the head or back thus coloured, while in others it extends more or less throughout. Even the texture of the fur is variable, some specimens being rather harsher than others. One of m y skins, which appears to differ conspicuously from all the others in its excessive softness and grey tint, is only distinguishable from a specimen of H. brucei in the British Museum by its greyer colour and rather longer fur. Other specimens collected by m e are perfectly intermediate between the types of H. brucei and H. alpini, while others completely connect the first named with the two species described by Dr. Gray from Mr. Jesse's collections. I a m therefore obliged to conclude that these species are founded on characters which, however apparently marked, are in reality only individual and not specific. The only skins which I a m inclined to consider possibly distinct from H. brucei are one from Adigrat and two from Wadela. These may possibly be varieties of the same species, as all have a rudimentary black dorsal spot. The first specimen is of a very dark brown colour much mottled with black, all the under-fur near the skin being blackish; the hairs are yellowish brown near the end and tipped with black. The skull is crushed and I have not extracted it. In the two specimens from above 10,000 feet elevation the fur is also dark, long, and moderately fine, with much less mottling than usual. The soles of the feet, of the hinder ones especially, appear very short. The nasal bones of the skull appear shorter. This of course is a character varying with age ; but the comparison is made between skulls of similar development. The zygomatic arch is broader and the series of molar teeth in the upper jaw is very much curved in the Wadela specimens ; and in one of them, in which all the hinder molars are well grown, although not worn, the foremost premolar is wanting on each side of both jaws. This tooth is frequently wanting here and there in skulls of H. brucei and is usually deficient in the lower jaw of aged specimens; but amongst eight adult skulls which I examined, I could find no instance of its absence throughout both jaws. I do not think these skins belong to the same species as the specimens from Shoa already mentioned (Euhyrax abyssinicus, Gray); they appear to m e to belong to a much smaller animal, and the colour and texture of the fur are dissimilar. I think they probably belong to an undescribed form. I shall not, however, attempt to name it on the evidence of only two skins. With regard to the Abyssinian Dendrohyrax I can say nothing. Dr. Gray only indicates its existence from a portion of an Abyssinian skull figured by v. Jaeger. I have already shown that Euhyrax abyssinicus, Gray, is not Hyrax abyssinicus oi Hemprich and Ehrenberg. Dr. Gray states that the skin of E. abyssinicus is not distinguishable from that of Hyrax capensis, but that the skull differs in the length of the diastema or space between the upper cutting-teeth and the first premolar of the upper jaw, which is very much greater |