inhabiting the South of Africa. 469 
Boom-Das of the Colonists. 
This species rather exceeds the size of the Hyrax Capensis, 
usually measuring about 21 inches from the tip of the nose to 
the extremity of the back, and about 7 inches in height. In its 
general form it resembles the species just named; and in the 
manner of moving and sitting they exactly coincide. The colour 
above is a sort of tawny-red, freely mottled and variegated with 
black ; on the lower parts of the sides it is reddish-white, with a 
less abundant intermixture of black ; and beneath, as well as on 
the insides of the legs, it is an uniform dull white. The reddish 
colour arises from the tips of most of the hairs being of that hue ; 
and the black variegations depend partly upon a scanty inter- 
mixture of long hairs, which are entirely of that colour, but 
principally upon an exposure of the deeper parts of the general 
covering, which are throughout inclined to black; and in con- 
sequence of this last being the chief source from whence the 
mottled appearances are derived, that necessarily is more or less 
considerable according to the position of the hair, &c. The 
crown of the head has a predominance of black; the sides and 
middle of the face anterior to the eyes are covered by a sort of 
short, dull, dusky, or reddish-white hair; and a whitish streak 
extends backwards from thence over each eye. The sides of the 
head a mixture of grayish-white and black, the upper and lower 
lips whitish, as is also the point of the chin, the throat, and the 
other under parts, as already mentioned. The ears are short 
and roundish, with their tips projecting but little beyond the 
hair with which the animal is covered ; outside they are beset 
with long dusty whitish hair, and inside they have a mere scanty 
coating of the same colour. Directly in the middle of the back, 
about half-way between the shoulders and rump, is a narrow 
. longitudinal whitish blotch, and about the centre of the chin is 
a trans- 
