OCR Text |
Show 1892.] SPECIES OF THE HYRACOIDEA. 61 rooted, early deciduous, rarely or never present in adult specimens. Ribs 22. Hab. Cape Colony, from the Capel to Natal2. 2. PROCAVIA SHOANA 3. Euhyrax abyssinicus, Gray, Ann. Mag. N. H. (4) i. p. 47 (1868) (nee Hyrax habessinicus, Hempr. & Ehr.). Hyrax scioanus, Gigl. Ann. Mus. Genov. (2) vi. p. 21 (1888). Size very large, form stout and heavy. Mammae 1-2 = 6. Fur very long, soft, and fine. General colour grizzled olivaceous grey, the straight lines of the back brown basally, with a broad dull yellow subterminal ring and black tip. The greater breadth of the yellow ring and the larger number of the straight hairs as compared to the woolly underfur quite take away the appearance of fine speckling characteristic of P. capensis, and produce a much coarser mottled appearance. Underfur coloured as in P. capensis, but the yellow band on both of the sides is broader, and its colour is duller and more tinged with olivaceous. Belly dirty yellow or brownish. Dorsal spot very large and diffuse, wholly black, very prominent in well-marked examples. Skull large and heavy, but very variable in its proportions, especially in the length of the muzzle, and consequently in the length of the diastema. In the female co-type4 the latter is fully 14 m m. long, while in another specimen it is only about 5 mm., but in the large Genoa Museum series nearly all the intermediate links are represented. On the whole the skull cannot be definitely distinguished from that of P. capensis, although ordinary specimens run rather larger of the northern than of the southern form. Teeth also very variable in size: m* from 7'1 to 8*1 in breadth; crown of *u_3 about 7'2 or 7'3 high; p 1 small, single-rooted, about 2'6 or 2*8 in horizontal length. 22 ribs (in one specimen). Hab. S. Abyssinia and Shoa. Co-types (3 & 2) from Ankober, collected by Major W . C. Harris. Other specimens from the Dalanta and Wadela Plateaux, S. Abyssinia (Stanford), Lit Marafia, Denz, Askalena, Monte Mabrat, and other neighbouring localities in Shoa (Antinori, Ra-gazzi, and Beccari). This fine Hyrax, almost if not quite the largest of the genus, has been the cause of great trouble and uncertainty among writers on the group ever since Gray first described the specimens obtained by Capt. Harris at Ankober, these specimens being therefore the co-types of the species as renamed by Giglioli. Gray's reference of this 1 I have myself seen these animals in numbers on the rocks near Fishhoek a small village on the eastern side of False Bay. Further west than this I know of no exact record of their occurrence. 2 The Museum owes to the Rev. W . D. Newnham a beautiful pair of skulls obtained by him in Natal. Lieut. H. Trevelyan has also presented several specimens from Kingwilliamstown. 3 This alteration in the spelling of the name is necessary to bring its pronunciation into conformity with that of the country on which it is based. 4 705 b of Gray's Hand-list Edent. &c. p. 4 2 ; not that figurei pi. x. fig. 1, which is probably P» capensis. |