1845.] Rough Notes on the Zoology of Candahar. 353 



life, bearing long abstinence with apparent ease, — a provision of 

 nature highly useful and essential in the desert tracts they inhabit. 

 It is probable, too, that they remain during the cold season in a semi- 

 torpid state, as the species which occurs in Afghanistan hybernates. 



N. B. — From the forehead proceeds a powerful muscle, passing 

 round the body along the medial line at the junction of the quills 

 and hair ; this enables the animal to protect itself in the following 

 manner : — the head being bent downwards to the belly, and the legs 

 tightly doubled under, the contraction of this muscle causes the edges 

 of the skin, where the quills and hairs unite, (which is along the sides,) 

 to be drawn together, by which means the limbs are shut in, and en- 

 closed as if in a purse with sliding strings. 



No. 19. Erinaceus \_auritus, Pallas, (nee Geoffroy), or a closely 

 allied species 20 ]. This species is common from Quetta to Candahar. 

 Length from tip of snout to base of tail about a foot ; tail an inch and 

 a half. Ears very large and rounded, cinereous ; face, inside of ears 

 and chin as far as the base of the ears, very pale cinereous, or nearly 

 white ; from thence all the under parts are sooty or rusty-black ; head, 

 limbs and under parts, clothed with soft hairs of a sooty black [or 

 fuliginous-brown] ; feet darkest ; tail black, obtuse and nearly naked ; 

 toes five on all the feet; claws whitish. Quills banded with dirty 

 straw colour and black. This is the description of an adult male 

 taken at Candahar. They feed on slugs, and helices with which the 

 fields at Candahar are overstocked ; they also prey on worms, insects, and 



20. The Siberian!?, auritus is described, in Pennant's Quadrupeds, to have the "up- 

 per jaw long and slender ; with very large open ears, naked, brown round the edges, 

 with soft whitish hairs within ; tail shorter than that of the European Hedgehog : 

 upper part of the body covered with slender brown spines, encompassed at the base, and 

 near the ends, with a ring of white: the belly and limbs clothed with a most elegant 

 soft white fur. " The statements here italicized do not apply to the great-eared 

 Afghan Hedgehog, the ears of which measure an inch and a quarter long posteriorly, 

 and seven-eighths of an inch broad ; their colour white : the dorsal spines are a little 

 grizzled at the surface, and radiate from the middle of the back, meeting those from 

 the sides, which are disposed irregularly as in the British Hedgehog. 



The muzzle is rather short and broad : the dentition presenting three subequal 

 pre-molars above, anterior to the scissor-tooth ; the first being largest, and the third 

 scarcely inferior to the second, but having a basal inner lobe ; the small hindmost 

 molar is also well developed, and is placed much less obliquely than in the European 

 Hedgehog. Should it prove new, I propose that it be termed E. megalotis. 



3 D 



