THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
These extraordinary little animals, ranging in size from rats to rabbits, 
have an outward likeness to rodents, but are really very different. The 
skull and teeth much resemble those of the rhinoceros; there 
are twenty-one pairs of ribs, and the short legs end in five 
toes, which are united by the skin, as in the elephant and rhinoceros, and 
are round and soft, merely protected in front by a broad nail, which does 
not reach the ground. Their tailless bodies are clothed with thick, uni- 
formly dark brown hair, discolored or absent around a curious gland near 
the middle of the back. They live in rocky or stony places, in communities, 
Conies. 
THE SvUTH AFRICAN ROCK BADGER (Ayrax capensis). 
like rabbits; make their homes in holes under rocks; feed at night or in 
the early morning on leaves and young shoots of trees and bushes; are 
timid and disappear with a squeaking cry at the least alarm; and in general 
behave much like our pikas. The only Asiatic one, the daman, inhabits 
Syria and Arabia, and is the ‘‘cony”’ of the Bible, prohibited to the Israel- 
ites under the mistaken belief that it chewed the cud; but it is now eaten 
by the Arabs. Several species inhabit Abyssinia and East Africa down 
to Mozambique; and the Cape and Natal are the home of one, familiar 
to English colonists as rock badger or rock rabbit, and to the Dutch as 
dasse, and often tamed as a pet. Three species of Central Africa differ 
decidedly from the others by their arboreal habits, making their breeding 
nests in holes in trees. 
Amblypoda (stump-toed) is the name of another primitive 
suborder which began as a contemporary of the Condylar- 
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