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Show 72 MR. O. THOMAS ON THE [Jan. 5, specimen being crushed, as mentioned by him, sufficiently accounts for his not realizing that the animal belonged to quite a different species from the rest of his specimens. P. brucei is the most widely distributed of all the Hyraces, extending from Senate, N. Tigre, its most northern recorded locality in Abyssinia, straight southwards as far as Mozambique, while its subspecies extends eastwards into Somali-land. The typical race of P. brucei seems to be a highland form, as Mr. Blanford's specimens were taken at 7500 feet and 8000 feet in Abyssinia ; the inland examples come from the great lake plateau, and Mr. Wray'sTaita one was taken in the mountains at an altitude of 4500 feet. On the other hand, Mr. Lort Phillips tells m e that var. somalica occurs at an altitude of three or four hundred feet only, about 20 or 30 miles inland of Berbera. In Abyssinia P. brucei seems to be far rarer than the two large-toothed species occurring with it, P. abyssinica in the north and P. shoana in South Abyssinia and Shoa; as both Mr. Blanford from the former and the Italian collectors from the latter each obtained only two or three specimens of this species as compared with some twenty or more of its rivals. This is of course only what one might expect, judging from the lesser specialization of its teeth, which presumably put it at a disadvantage compared with its hypsodont competitors. [PROCAVIA GRAYI. Dendrohyrax grayi, Bocage, J. Sci. Lisb. (2) iii. p. 190 (1889). External characters as in P. bocagei. Mammary formula unknown. Skull and teeth also as in that species, except that the orbits are completed behind by bone. Type in the Lisbon Museum. Hab. Angola ; Quissange, Capangombe (Anchieta). Basing his allocation on the presumably important character of the completed orbits, Prof, du Bocage assigned the only specimen of this form of which he had seen the skull to Dendrohyrax, and then naturally distinguished it from " D." arborea and dorsalis; but I am much more disposed to consider it as an abnormal variation of P. bocagei for the reasons set forth below. In fact I give it a separate heading chiefly to stimulate inquiry, so that the point mav be later settled with certainty. Its position, if a good species, would be here betweeii the brucei group and the more typical Dendrohyraces. To begin with, I am a disbeliever in species only distinguishable by a single character of nearly or quite generic rank, and believe that if P. grayi really were a distinct species of a different group there would be some other characters besides the completed orbits that would betray the fact to an eye so trained as that of the describer himself. As a matter of fact, however, the British Museum received from Prof, du Bocage in 1888, under the name of " K. bocagei" a skin (88. 12. 6. 1) which, when its skull was extracted, proved to have completed orbits, and therefore to be a " P. grayi" No |
