HYRACES. 



Syrian Hyrax. 



short, hissing noise. They had young at the time of our visit [November], and I 

 met with two litters, each of three young, which were about the size of very large 

 rats, with soft chocolate-brown downy hair. The young play about on the rocks 

 together like kittens, chasing one another, and darting in and out among the 

 clefts." 



The Syrian hyrax (P. syriaca) is the coney of Scripture, and the 



only species found out of Africa, its range including Syria, Palestine, 

 the Sinaitic Peninsula, and the whole of Arabia. It is a small or medium-sized 

 and rather variable species, with somewhat soft and shaggy hair of a dull orange- 

 yellow or fawn colour ; and the spot on the back rather small, oval, and its com- 

 ponent hairs yellow throughout their length. Canon Tristram states that these 

 hyraces produce 

 from three to six 

 young at a birth, 

 but that four ap- 

 pears to be the 

 ordinary number. 

 He observes that 

 "they are far too 

 wary to be taken in 

 traps, and the only 

 chance of securing 

 one is patiently to 

 lie concealed, about 

 sunset or before 

 sunrise, on some 

 overhanging cliff, 

 taking care not to 



let the shadow be cast below, and thus to wait till the little creatures cautiously 

 peep forth from their holes. . . . They make a nest of dried grass and fur, in which 

 the young are buried like those of a mouse. The ftesh is much prized by the 

 Arabs. We found it good, but rather dry and insipid, as dark in colour as that of 

 the hare." 



Three species of the genus, of which one is from Western and 



two are from Eastern Africa, and not improbably a third from the 

 central equatorial region, differ from the rest in their arboreal habits. These three 

 species agree in that the females have but a single pair of teats ; and are respect- 

 ively known as P. valida from Mount Kilima-Njaro, readily distinguished from all 

 the others by the bright fulvous hue of the under-parts, P. arborea from Eastern 

 and South- Eastern Africa, and P. dorsalis ranging on the west coast from Liberia 

 to the Cameruns and Fernando Po. The latter species is of large size, and 

 characterised by its long shaggy fur, black at the base and white at the tips of the 

 hairs, and the relatively large size of the head compared to the body. The 

 Kilima-Njaro species is found at elevations of from seven thousand to eleven thousand 

 feet in the dense forests clothing the mountain. They live entirely in the trees, 

 making their lairs and breeding-places in holes in the boughs and trunks; and 



TBEE-HYRAX. After Thomas. 



Tree-Hyraces. 



