56 EINAR LONNBERG, MAMMALS COLLECTED BY THE SWEDISH ZOOLOGICAL EXPEDITION ETC. 
countries are concerned. J. A. ALLEN has communicated’ measurements of 6 skulls 
from Leikipia, Brit. East Africa. These agree also with the measurements of the 
material of this museum. Dr Winton mentions (I. c. p. 540) that he has observed 
that »specimens from south of the Zambesi — — — are rather larger, and the facial 
part of the skull appears slightly longer in proportion than those obtained from the 
north of that river». The measurements of the present material do not support this 
except for southern males. It must, however, be borne in mind that male members 
of the genus Canis often vary a great deal, and some specimens may be bigger than 
the average. As I only have one male skull from East Africa, and that one is not 
very old, I cannot say whether the southern males of this species generally are larger 
in size or not. The measurements of Noack’s type specimen of C. mesomelas schmidti 
are of course decidedly smaller than the corresponding ones of any of the mesomelas 
skulls in this museum, even than those of females from Eritrea, and the Guaso Nyiri 
district. In consequence of this it must be assumed either that C. mesomelas schmidti 
is a race with very restricted habitat in Somaliland, or that the type specimen to 
which this name was given was a dwarfed individual. 
Noack has also indicated that his C. mesomelas schmidti differs from the typical 
race with regard to the dentition. This difference is said (l. c. p. 620) to consist 
therein that in C. m. schmidti no lateral cusps (»Nebenzacken») are to be found on 
pm®* and pm* which is said to be the case in the true C. mesomelas. This is, how- 
ever, a very variable characteristic. The small cusps are sometimes present sometimes 
absent even in southern specimens. In the specimen from Guaso Nyiri the additio- 
nal cusp of pm* is very well developed. In a similar way pm of C. m. schmidti is 
said to have only one lateral cusp, while there are two in the true C. mesomelas. 
The latter is the case in all my material. 
With regard to colour I cannot find any important differences between speci- 
mens from Eritrea and Guaso Nyiri on one side, and those from Damaraland on 
the other, except that the former perhaps are a little brighter, and that in the latter 
the dark line below the eye is only faintly developed, whereas it is distinct in the 
northern specimens. The presence of this dark line in specimens of this Jackal from 
the Cape Colony has been stated by Dr Wryton (Il. c. 540), and as mentioned above 
it can be traced in specimens from Damaraland. There are thus new and more 
constant characteristic needed before any distinction can be made between the East 
resp. Northeast-African Black-backed Jackals and the South-African ones.’ The type of 
C. mesomelas schmidti Noack is excluded from this, but more material of the same 
kind is evidently needed before the racial distinctness of C. mesomelas schmidti can 
be said to be fully proved when there are larger and typical Black-backed Jackals 
to be found as well in Eritrea as in the country north of Guaso Nyiri. 
1 Bull. Ameriean Museum XXYI p. 172. New York 1909. 
2 Q. Neumann has recorded the Black-backed Jackal of East Africa as » Canis mesomelas schmidti Noack» 
(Zool. Jahrb. Bd. 13, 1900, p. 550) without giving any reason for doing so. 
