THE SYRIAN HYRAX. 195 



others. What is his food I cannot determine with 

 any degree of certainty. When in my possession, 

 he ate bread and milk, and seemed rather to be a 

 moderate than voracious feeder. I suppose he 

 lives upon grain, fruit, and roots. He seemed too 

 timid and backward in his own nature to feed 

 upon living food, or catch it by hunting. 



" He makes no noise that ever I heard, but 

 certainly chews the cud. To discover this was 

 the principal reason of my keeping him alive. 

 Those with whom he is acquainted he follows 

 with great assiduity. The arrival of any living 

 creature, even of a bird, makes him seek for a 

 hiding place ; and I shut him up in a cage with a 

 small chicken, after omitting feeding him a whole 

 day : the next morning the chicken was unhurt, 

 thotfgh the Askoko came to me with great signs 

 of having suffered from hunger. I likewise made 

 a second experiment, by enclosing two smaller 

 birds with him for the space of several weeks. 

 Neither were these hurt, though both of them fed, 

 without impediment, of the meat that was thrown 

 into his cage ; and the smallest of these, a kind 

 of tit-mouse, seemed to be advancing in a sort of 

 familiarity with him, though I never saw it ven- 

 ture to perch upon him, yet it would eat frequently, 

 and at the same time, of the food upon which the 

 Askoko was feeding ; and in this consisted chiefly 

 the familiarity I speak of, for the Askoko himself 



