HYRACES. 
521 
short, hissing noise. They had young at the time of our visit [November], and I 
met with two litters, each of three young, which were about the size of very large 
rats, with soft chocolate-brown downy hair. The young play about on the rocks 
together like kittens, chasing one another, and darting in and out amono- the 
clefts.” 
Syrian Hyrax. Tlie S y nan h y rax (P. syricica) is the coney of Scripture, and the 
oniy species found out of Africa, its range including Syria, Palestine, 
the Sinaitic Peninsula, and the whole of Arabia. It is a small or medium-sized 
and rather variable species, with somewhat soft and shaggy hair of a dull orange- 
yellow or fawn colour; and the spot on the back rather small, oval, and its com¬ 
ponent hairs yellow throughout their length. Canon Tristram states that these 
hyraces produce 
from three to six 
young at a birth, 
but that four ap¬ 
pears to be the 
ordinary number. 
He observes that 
“they are far too 
wary to be taken in 
traps, and the only 
chance of securing 
one is patiently to 
lie concealed, about 
sunset or before 
sunrise, on some 
overhanging cliff, 
taking care not to 
let the shadow be cast below, and thus to wait till the little creatures cautiously 
peep forth from their holes. . . . They make a nest of dried grass and fur, in which 
the young are buried like those of a mouse. The flesh is much prized by the 
Arabs. We found it good, but rather dry and insipid, as dark in colour as that of 
the hare.” 
Three species of the genus, of which one is from Western and 
Tree-Hyraces. 1 . 
two are from Eastern Africa, and not improbably a third from the 
central equatorial region, differ from the rest in their arboreal habits. These three 
species agree in that the females have but a single pair of teats; and are respect¬ 
ively known as P. valida from Mount Kilima-Njaro, readily distinguished from all 
the others by the bright fulvous hue of the under-parts, P. arborea from Eastern 
and South-Eastern Africa, and P. dorsalis ranging on the west coast from Liberia 
to the Cameruns and Fernando Po. The latter species is of large size, and 
characterised by its long shaggy fur, black at the base and white at the tips of the 
hairs, and the relatively large size of the head compared to the body. The 
Kilima-Njaro species is found at elevations of from seven thousand to eleven thousand 
feet in the dense forests clothing the mountain. They live entirely in the trees, 
making their lairs and breeding-places in holes in the boughs and trunks; and 
