SYRIAN HYRAX. 
144 
thick and clumsy. Its flesh is esteemed very good 
meat. 
Syrian hyxiax. 
This species seems to have been first clearly and 
fully described by Mr. Bruce in the appendix to 
his celebrated Abyssinian Travels ; if the des- 
cription appears in some parts rather too minute, 
let it be considered that Mr. B. was treating of 
an animal almost unknown to European naturalists, 
and which, in consequence, seemed to demand a pe- 
culiar degree of exactness. 
“ This curious animal/ 5 says Mr. Bruce, “4s 
found in Ethiopia, in the caverns of the rocks, or 
under the great stones in the Mountain of the Sun, 
behind the queen’s palace at Koscam. It is also 
frequent in the deep caverns in the rocks, in many 
other parts of Abyssinia. It does not burrow or 
'make holes as the rat and rabbit, nature having 
interdicted him this practice, by furnishing him 
with feet, the toes of which are perfectly round, 
and of a soft pulpy tender substance ; the fleshy 
parts of the toes project beyond the nails, which 
are rather broad than sharp, very similar to a 
man’s nails ill grown, and these appear rather given 
him for the defence of his soft toes, than for any 
active use in digging, to which they are by no 
means adapted. 
“ His hind foot is long and narrow, divided 
with two deep wrinkles, or clefts, in the middle, 
drawn across the centre, on each side of which 
the flesh rises with considerable protuberancy, 
audit is terminated by three claws; the middle 
one is the longest. The fore foot has four toes, 
three disposed in the same proportion as the hind 
foot ; the fourth, the largest of the whole* h 
i 
