| OCR Text |
Show 1892.] ON MAMMALS, REPTILES, ETC. FROM BARBARY. 3 1. On a small Collection of Mammals, Reptiles, and Batrachians from Barbary. By JOHN ANDERSON, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. [Received November 31, 1891.] (Plate I.) The Mammals, Reptiles, and Batrachians enumerated in the following notes were obtained either by myself in Algeria and Tunisia, or by m y collector at Duirat, in the latter region, on the confines of Tripoli. But besides these, several species of Reptiles from the Sahara, purchased from a collector at Biskra \ are also included in the list. The specimens collected by me were acquired between December and the beginning of May, and those captured by my collector between the middle of May and the end of June.2 The weather experienced in Algeria, in the winter and spring of 1889-90, was very unfavourable to collecting natural history specimens, and more especially reptiles. In Algiers itself, from the end of November until the 7th February, there was a succession of rainless intervals followed by protracted periods of wet weather accompanied with high winds, and so cold that fires were indispensable while the wet weather lasted. During these storms what fell as rain in the lower altitudes of the Tell, came down as snow on the Atlas and the high plateaux, a cold wind blowing from off their heights. On the 10th February I encountered snow a metre in depth on Mount Beni Salah (5379 ft.) above Blidah, at an elevation of about 1200 to 1500 ft. below the summit; and M . Lataste records that, on the 22nd April 1881, the rain and hail that fell at that elevation on this mountain prevented him from passing beyond the farm called La Glaciere, where snow is stored for use in summer at Algiers. This bad weather was not confined to the neighbourhood of Algiers, because, while there, there were constant reports coming in of heavy snow in Kabylia, at Setif, Constantine, and Batna, and indeed over the high plateaux generally, these storms occasionally making themselves felt as far south as Biskra, whence it was reported 1 The localities in which the specimens had been captured were in every instance carefully noted on the bottles. 2 The following is a list of the localities visited by me, with the altitudes of some of them, and the date when I was at each:-Algiers, Nov.-7 Feb.; Blidah, on the southern slope of the plain of the Metidji, 7th-12th Feb.; H a m m am R'irha, 1800 ft., 12th-27th Feb.; Oran, 27th Feb.-6th March; TlemcOT, 2500 ft,, 6th-llth March; Oran, llth-13th March; Milianah, 2400 ft., 13th- 19th March; Algiers, 19th-31st March; Tizi Ouzou, 31st March; Fort National, Kabylia, 3153 ft., 1st April; Tizi Ouzou, lst-2nd April; Bordj Bouira 2nd April; Bougie, 3rd-5th April; Kharata, Chabet el Akhira, 1280 ft., 5th-8th April; Setif, 3573 ft., 8th-10th April; Constantine, 2093 ft., 10th- 15th April; Biskra, 360 ft., 15th-22nd April; Constantine, 22nd-23rd April; H a m m a m Meskoutine, 23rd-28th April; Souk el Arba, plain of the Medjeida, Tunisia, 29th April; Tunis, 30th April-12th May. |
