if A JIM ALU. 253 



and it appeared much as if there was a cranial difference 

 also, the length of the diastema being proportionally 

 greater in the unspotted specimens ; but more careful 

 examination showed that it is only in one or two skins 

 that there is absolutely no trace of a dorsal spot, and 

 that those belong to young individuals, in which it is 

 usually less well-marked than in adults, whilst the 

 proportional length of the diastema is a character of 

 very dubious value. In two skulls before me of about 

 the same age, and of animals which were, I believe, 

 obtained from the same burrow, the relative length in 

 the upper jaw of the diastema and of the first three 

 molars is in one specimen 0'35 to 0'48 inch; in the 

 other, 0'46 to 0'48. The skius only differ in one being 

 more ferrugineous than the other, a character rarely of 

 much value amongst mammalia in general, and, as T have 

 ascertained by repeated observations, of not the slightest 

 importance amongst Abyssinian Hyraces. I have, in 

 repeated instances, seen several animals amongst those 

 scattered over the face of a cliff, or lying out on large 

 stones, which were far more rufous than their com- 

 panions of the same burrow. 



Of the specimens collected by me which I refer to 

 this species, one was shot at Upper Suru only 2,000 feet 

 above the sea ; one at Undul WeUs at about 4,000 feet ; 

 three at Senaf^, 8,000 feet ; one at Agula, one at Antalo, 

 both 7,000 feet ; one ia the Anseba valley, 4,000 feet ; 

 and sixteen at Adigrat, 8,000 feet. Amongst this series 

 I find every gradation between the four forms described 

 by Dr. Gray. There can, T think, be but little hesitation 



