640 MR. BLANFORD ON ABYSSINIAN SPECIES OF HyRAX. [Dec. 9, 
only the head or back thus coloured, while in others it extends more 
or less throughout. Even the texture of the fur is variable, some 
specimens being rather harsher than others. One of my skins, which 
appears to differ conspicuously from all the others in its excessive 
softness and grey tint, is only distinguishable from a specimen of H. 
brucei in the British Museum by its greyer colour and rather longer 
fur. Other specimens collected by me are perfectly intermediate 
between the types of H. brucei and H. alpini, while others com- 
pletely connect the first named with the two species described by 
Dr. Gray from Mr. Jesse’s collections. I am therefore obliged 
to conclude that these species are founded on characters which, 
however apparently marked, are in reality only individual and not 
specific. 
The only skins which I am inclined to consider possibly distinct 
from H. brucei are one from Adigrat and two from Wadela. These 
may possibly be varieties of the same species, as all have a rudi- 
mentary black dorsal spot. The first specimen is of a very dark 
brown colour much mottled with black, all the under-fur near the 
skin being blackish; the hairs are yellowish brown near the end 
and tipped with black. The skull is crushed and I have not ex- 
tracted it. 
In the two specimens from above 10,000 feet elevation the fur is 
also dark, long, and moderately fine, with much less mottling than 
usual. The soles of the feet, of the hinder ones especially, appear 
very short. The nasal bones of the skull appear shorter. This of 
course is a character varying with age; but the comparison is made 
between skulls of similar development. The zygomatic arch is broader 
and the series of molar teeth in the upper jaw is very much curved 
in the Wadela specimens ; and in one of them, in which all the hinder 
molars are well grown, although not worn, the foremost premolar 
is wanting on each side of both jaws. This tooth is frequently 
wanting here and there in skulls of H. brucei and is usually deficient 
in the lower jaw of aged specimens; but amongst eight adult skulls 
which I examined, I could find no instance of its absence throughout 
both jaws. 
I do not think these skins belong to the same species as the speci- 
mens from Shoa already mentioned (Huhyraz abyssinicus, Gray); 
they appear to me to belong to a much smaller animal, and the 
colour and texture of the fur are dissimilar. 1 think they probably 
belong to an undescribed form. I shall not, however, attempt to 
name it on the evidence of only two skins. 
With regard to the Abyssinian Dendrohyrax I can say nothing. 
Dr. Gray only indicates its existence from a portion of an Abyssinian 
skull figured by v. Jaeger. I have already shown that Luhyrax 
abyssinicus, Gray, is not Hyrax abyssinicus of Hemprich and Eh- 
renberg. Dr. Gray states that the skin of ZL. abyssinicus is not 
distinguishable from that of Hyraa capensis, but that the skull differs 
in the length of the diastema or space between the upper cutting-teeth 
and the first premolar of the upper jaw, which is very much greater 
