HYSTEIX CEISTATA. ' 313 
Measurements of skulls of specimens from Suakin. 
mm. ' mm. 
Greatest length (pmx. to occiput).140 130 
,, breadth. 77 72 
Vertical depth (palate to highest point of nasals) .... 61 57-5 
Length of nasals. 81-5 75 
„ froutals, middle line. 22-5 24 
Basallength.. . 125-5 114 
Palatal length. 69 5 61-3 
Molar series. 34 30 5 ^ 
Within our boundary, Suakin is the only locality from which Porcupines have been 
recorded. 
Riippell (Eeise Nub., Kordof., &c. 1829, p. 123) mentions porcupines among the 
animals observed on the route from Debbeh by Simrie and Haraga to El Obeid; and 
Heuglin (SB. Ak. Wissensch. Wien, ix. 1852, p. 917) also mentions the animal in 
Bayuda Province. Specimens are necessary before the species can be determined. 
The porcupines from Southern Europe, the whole of Africa, and Asia as far as the 
peninsula of India are almost indistinguishable outwardly; the species are separated 
with certainty only by the formation of the skull. 
In 1894 Dr. Anderson presented a living specimen from Suakin to the Zoological 
Society of London, and from this specimen the Plate has been drawn. This animal is 
still living in the Gardens at Regent’s Park, side by side with specimens of the distinct 
species—according to the skull—from South Africa, but it is quite beyond my power to 
find any character by which to separate these specimens outwardly. The amount of 
white on the crest is variable. 
The Crested Porcupines are readily separable into well-marked races by their skulls. 
In Southern Europe, North Africa, probably Asia Minor, and the neighbourhood of 
Suakin they all agree in being of rather small size, with the nas-als moderately arched 
and extending back to above the posterior half of the temporal fossae, the ascending 
process of the premaxilla rather narrow, and the process of the maxilla forming the 
outer wall of the infraorbital foramen narrow and very slightly inflated. This form is 
known as H. cristata, Linn.; but if further evidence shows the North-African porcupine 
to be distinct from the Italian, it would have to take the name of H. cuvieri. Gray, 
Linnaeus having based his description of H. cristata upon the porcupine of Southern 
Europe. 
Hystrix senecjalica, F. Cuv., is a larger form, confined to Western Africa. This 
species is distinguished by still greater developed nasals, both in length and breadth ; 
^ Permanent pm. not yet up. 
2s 
