260 ON SAFARI 



the following, wliicli I extract from Flower and Lydekker's 

 Mammals : Living and Extinct (p. 208) — 



" Family Orycteropodid.^ 



" External surface scantily covered with bristle-like 

 hairs. Teeth numerous, apparently heterodont, diphyo- 

 dont, and of peculiar and complex structure, being 

 traversed by a number of parallel vertical pulp-canals. 

 Lumber vertebrae with no accessory zygapophyses. 

 Femur with a third trochanter. Fore-feet without 

 poUex but all the other digits well developed . . . 

 suited to digging, the plantar surfaces resting on the 

 ground in walking. Hind- feet with five subequal toes. 

 Mouth elongated and tubular. Tongue subvermiform. 

 Uterus bicornuate. Placenta broadly zonular. Feeding 

 on animal substances. Terrestrial and fossorial in habits. 

 Now mainly limited to the Ethiopian region." 



Such descriptions evidence the depth and thorough- 

 ness of scientific research, but hardly help one to form any 

 rational conception of what the actual animal resembles 

 in life. 



Since writing the above, I have at length met with 

 the aarcl-vaark — in a glass case in Bergen Museum ! 

 Upon viewing his personal appearance (as here roughly 

 sketched) regrets at having missed seeing him in Africa 

 diminished. One almost felt grateful at meeting thus, 

 on neutral ground. 



Another creature which, although common, is 

 absolutely and always unseen, is the aard-wolf — 

 earth-wolf, in Boer nomenclature. This again is 

 strictly nocturnal and subterranean in habit. By 

 descrij^tion of systematists, he is of the Hyaenas ; yet 

 with the remarkable exception that his teeth are feeble 

 and even rudimentary. Strange are Nature's facts 

 when a hyaena with "rudimentary" teeth has to be 

 conceived, since one never sees the beast in person. 

 This is a handsome animal, as his portrait at p. 113 shows. 



