inhabiting the South of Africa. 469 



Boom-Das of the Colonists. 



This species rather exceeds the size of the tlyrax Capensis, 

 usually measuring about 21 inches from the tip of the nose to 

 the extremity of the back, and about 7 inches in height. In its 

 general form it resembles the species just named ; and in the 

 manner of moving and sitting they exactly coincide. The colour 

 above is a sort of tawny-red, freely mottled and variegated with 

 black ; on the lower parts of the sides it is reddish-white, with a 

 less abundant intermixture of black ; and beneath, as well as on 

 the insides of the legs, it is an uniform dull white. The reddish 

 colour arises from the tips of most of the hairs being of that hue ; 

 and the black variegations depend partly upon a scanty inter- 

 mixture of long hairs, which are entirely of that colour, but 

 principally upon an exposure of the deeper parts of the general 

 covering, which are throughout inclined to black ; and in con- 

 sequence of this last being the chief source from whence the 

 mottled appearances are derived, that necessarily is more or less 

 considerable according to the position of the hair, &c. The 

 crown of the head has a predominance of black ; the sides and 

 middle of the face anterior to the eyes are covered by a sort of 

 short, dull, dusky, or reddish-white hair ; and a whitish streak 

 extends backwards from thence over each eye. The sides of the 

 head a mixture of grayish-white and black, the upper and lower 

 lips whitish, as is also the point of the chin, the throat, and the 

 other under parts, as already mentioned. The ears are short 

 and roundish, with their tips projecting but little beyond the 

 hair with which the animal is covered ; outside Û\ey are beset 

 with long dusty whitish hair, and inside they have a mere scanty 

 coating of the same colour. Directly in the middle of the back, 

 about half-way between the shoulders and rump, is a narrow 

 longitudinal whitish blotch, and about the centre of the chin is 



a trans- 



