196 THE SYRIAN HYRAX. 



never shewed any alteration of behaviour upon 

 the presence of the bird, but treated it with a kind 

 of absolute indifference. The cage, indeed, was 

 large, and the birds having a perch to sit upon in 

 the upper part of it, they did not annoy one 

 another. 



" In Amhara this animal is called Ashkoko, 

 which, I apprehend, is derived from the singularity 

 of those long herinaceous hairs, which, like small 

 thorns, grow about his back, and which in Amhara 

 are called Ashok. In Arabia and Syria he is 

 called Israel's Sheep, or Gannim Israel ; for what 

 reason I know not, unless it be chiefly from his 

 frequenting the rocks of Horeb and Sinai, where 

 the children of Israel made their forty years pere- 

 grination : perhaps this name obtains only among 

 the Arabians. I apprehend he is known by'that 

 of Saphan in the Hebrew, and is the animal erro- 

 neously called by our translators Cuniculus, the 

 rabbit or coney.*' 



To render the illustration of this very curious 

 genus as complete as our limits will permit, we 

 have introduced a figure of the species described 

 by Pallas. 



