18 



THE ABYSSINIAN WOLF. 



CANI8 SIMENSIS. 



Canis simensis, Riippell, Neue Wirbelthiere z. d. Fauna von Abyssinien 



gehorig (Frankfurt, 1835-1840), p. 39, pi. 14 (1835) ; 



J. A. Wagner, Supplement to Schreber's Saugth., Abth. ii. 



p. 382. 

 Simenia simensis, Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1868, p. 506 ; id. Catalogue of 



Carnivorous Mammalia, p. 192. 



THE animal we have next to consider is plainly a very distinct species, 

 and has no special affinity to any of the numerous varieties of the 

 Common Wolf. It was discovered by Dr. Edward Riippell during his 

 travels in Abyssinia, in most of the provinces of which country it is, he 

 says, to be met with. It hunts in packs, preying upon domestic sheep 

 and small wild animals, but it is regarded as never being dangerous 

 to man. The individual captured was taken in the mountains of 

 Semyen (Samen or Simen), and is now in the British Museum. This 

 specimen, which is the type of the species, is figured in our Plate VI. 



The animal is about the size of a large sheep-dog. 



The Abyssinian Wolf is remarkable for the great length and slender - 

 ness of its snout. 



Its colour is a light yellowish reddish brown on the whole of the 

 upper and almost all the outer parts. It is white round the mouth, 

 more or less round the eyes, on the inner margins of the ears, on the 

 chest, on the front of the fore legs below the wrist, on the front of the 

 hind legs below the knee, around the vent, beneath and at the sides 

 of the proximal half of the tail, inside the thighs, and on the hinder 

 half of the belly. The distal half of the tail is blackish. Those lower 



