LONNBERG, MAMMALS. IT, 



The most striking difference between the present specimens and SUNDEVALL'S 

 female type which is best preserved, is that the former have their tail less intensely black 

 and somewhat shorter. The former characteristic may, however, be due to the wearing 

 off of the tips of the hair, and perhaps to difference in age as well. Older specimens ap- 

 pear to have blacker tails than younger. The coloured plate which MIVART has published 

 in the ^Monograph of the Canidte, and which represents a male specimen of the ailustus- 

 type from Kilimandjaro proves fully that the Jackals of that region at least sometimes 

 have the tail just as intensely black as the true adustus from South Africa. 



The length of the tail with the hair of these Kilimandjaro specimens is 35 40 cm. 

 while even the female of SUNDEVALL'S types has the same measurement amounting to 

 46 cm. The measurement indicated by W. L. SCLATER in The Fauna of South Africa 

 (I p. 96) for the South African adustus is 18 inches, that is 45 46 cm. From these facts 

 it might be supposed that the southern variety might have a somewhat longer tail than 

 the East African. It is true that MATSCHIE has recorded the same measurement for C. 

 adustus from German East Africa to 45 cm. in his book Saugethiere Ost-Afrikas (p. 65) 

 1895, but he had himself not seen any Jackals of this kind from East Africa then, as he 

 mentions further down on the same page. 



Another characteristic is perhaps of more importance. DE WINTON says in his 

 already quoted description (1. c. p. 542) of Canis lateralis: Distinct dark dashes on the 

 lower part of the forearm. These dark dashes may also be seen represented on the 

 plate in MIVART' s work quoted above and they are very well developed on the forelegs 

 of the present specimens although blackest in the two oldest specimens. 



These dark dashes are furthermore not only colour patches but are formed by 

 the black tips to otherwise rusty brownish hairs, which are longer and stiffer than else- 

 where on the forearm. These hair attain a length of nearly 3 cm. on the better of these 

 two specimens. They are firmly pressed down to the limb and form therefore not a brush 

 but a kind of a thick and elongated hair cushion in front of the carpal joint. This thicke- 

 ning of the hair-cover can easily be felt but if it corresponds to some internal struc- 

 ture (glands?) or not, cannot, unfortunately, be discerned on the skin. There is nothing 

 similar to this to be seen on the forearm of the skins of Canis mesomelas and C. varie- 

 <j1n from the same district. On SUNDEVALL'S types of C. adustus the hair on top of 

 the carpal joint are a little prolonged but less than in the present specimens, and in the 

 female there is no dark dash at all and in the male it is much less than in the Kiliman- 

 djaro specimens. The question is then whether these dark dashes on the forearm 

 always are absent or at least faintly developed in the South African C. adustus. W. L. 

 SCLATER does not mention them in his description of the species in the book on The 

 Mammals of South Africa . 



In the year 1902 NEUMANN described a species of Jackal from Kaff a which he named 

 C". kaffensis. 1 This seems to differ much more from the adustus-type as it has no white 

 tip to the tail etc. The skull resembles that of C. adustus in its profile, length of the 

 palate etc. but the nasals do not extend so far backwards as in C. adustus. 



1 SJI/IMT. (res. NiituH'. Fivuiiile. Ik-Hiii ]!)(.)_' IP. 53. 



