ERINACEUS AURITUS. 
159 
third of each spine is more or less devoid of nodosities, the ridges giving place to a 
fine transverse striation. I have seen specimens from Astrakan and Babylon agreeing 
exactly with the Egyptian animals; the skull of a Babylon specimen differs in no way 
from a skull of an Egyptian specimen. 
The original types of Sundevall’s E. platyotis are in the Stockholm Museum. 
Professor F. H. Smitt had the courtesy to send me the following remarks regarding 
these two specimens, which were obtained from Egypt by Hedenborg:—“The limit of 
the spines on the forehead is undivided, straight across the forehead, just behind the 
line between the ears, without any division into lateral grou'ps or any median hare area. 
According to your wish, I herewith enclose four spines from one of the type specimens.” 
There can therefore be no doubt that these hedgehogs belong to the species under 
notice. 
The specimen which formed the groundwork of Dobson’s description of E. frontalis 
in his Monograph of the Insectivora appears in the British Museum list of Mammalia 
for 1843 under that name, as coming from the Cape of Good Hope ; but it is not stated 
that it was presented by Dr. Andrew Smith, whereas other mammalian specimens 
given by that traveller to the National Collection bore, as a rule, a statement to the 
effect that they were gifts from him. This specimen in no way agrees with Smith’s ^ 
description of his species. It is at once distinguished by its much larger ears, which 
stand up high above the spines, whereas in the figure of the South-African hedgehog 
(Ill. Zool. S. Afr. 1849, pi. 3) the ears are represented amidst the spines. The marked 
difference, too, between the description of the colour of E. frontalis of Dobson and 
the colour of the figure given by Smith of his hedgehog can never be explained as 
attributable to the fading of the specimen in the Museum, as suggested by Dobson. 
Dobson’s so-called E. frontalis is unquestionably an example of the Egyptian hedgehog, 
E. auritus, and as such never came from South Africa. It has no bare area on the 
forehead; the spines do not extend on to the forehead in front of the ears ; the large 
ears project above the spines which are nodose and similarly coloured to those of 
typical Egyptian examples, with which the coloration of the haired parts is also 
identical; and, moreover, it has a well-developed pollex. (Unfortunately the hind feet 
are absent, so nothing can be said regarding its hallux.) 
On the other hand, the hedgehog from Benguella in the British Museum, which 
Dobson erroneously considered to be identical with E. diadematus, Fitz., under which 
he placed it, is not only, as he thought, probably identical with E. frontalis, Smith, but 
is absolutely so. Its ears are shorter than the interaural spines, and its coloration 
agrees with Smith’s description oi E. frontalis, and, as in that species, the hallux is well 
developed, which is not the case with E. diadematus, Fitz., which I had the privilege of 
examining in London, thanks to the great courtesy of Dr. Ludwig Lorenz, of the 
Vienna Museum. E. diadematus, Fitz., is identical with E. alhiventris, M^agner. 
^ S. Afr. Quart. Jouru. vol. i., Oct. 1831, p. 10. 
