Having made the preceding experiments in the manner suggested, it will be interesting to notice how much the effect of tinted moonlight may be increased by operating in a dark room, with only one opening for the lunar rays. Under such circumstances, if the moon be nearly full, and a piece of bright red glass held opposite an opening of moderate dimensions, a distinct dark red tint may be thrown on white paper, or linen, but no noticeable colour can be communicated to dark objects unless their surface is highly reflective. A looking-glass shows the colour well, and, still better, the convex surface of a white china cup, which has a good glaze. A striking effect may also be produced by receiving the tinted light on a round white glass bottle full of water, which in a red light becomes "warm gules." Green glass succeeds very well, so does blue, but the colour is less powerful. The strongest effect is obtained by holding a good reflecting surface near the glass, but a noticeable tint may be thrown across the room on a white ground.

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Having obtained distinct coloration in this way, introduce a lamp, turned down so as to yield scarcely any light, and then dually turn it up until the colours give place wholly or partially to the homogeneous, yellowish-white light which the lamp diffuses. By this means we get a notion of the strength or weakness of lunar tints, but we have to consider their effects from another point of view.

In daylight we see coloured objects for the most part in contrast or harmony with other colours, and the effect of each is thus modified to a considerable extent. Thus a grey pattern on a yellow ground looks violet, that being the accidental or complementary colour of yellow. A blue ground, in like manner, makes a grey pattern thrown on it appear tinged with orange, which is the complementary of blue. All eyes that are not very defective are sufficiently affected by complementary colours to modify very materially the impression produced by surrounding objects, but the sensitiveness of eyes to colour-action of this or any other kind depends partly upon their constitution, and very much upon the amount of intelligent exercise their owners have given them. Most persons are content to go through life half blind, because they are too lazy or too stupid to make a rational use of the organs bestowed upon them. But even good and practised eyes differ much in sensitiveness to particular colours and in ability to be affected by accidental colours. Most people can see the accidental colour of a blue or red wafer held for a few moments in strong sunlight, but have to look very steadily and for some time in order to see it developed in a somewhat shady room. Moonlight is too feeble to affect our visual organs much through accidental colours,

and thus objects seen in moonlight and in sunlight will differ on this account, as well as by simple reason of diminished intensity of illumination.

Let us now turn to another set of experiments, and, when the moon is at or near her full, in clear weather, let one or more members of a family dress themselves in strongly-coloured clothes, red feathers, green shawls, blue silk dresses, etc., and then walk in a moon-lit garden, leaving others to guess what they have put on. Generally speaking very considerable mistakes will be made, although, when close to bright red, blue, green, or yellow objects, their colours will be approximately guessed. In one set of trials which we made, scarlet was pronounced crimson, but at the same time the supposed black cloth binding of a book was called purple, which was found correct; thus showing that the blue and violet rays could not be very deficient in force. Tertiary colours will be more bewildering than primaries or secondaries, and different eyes will pronounce different judgments, the discrepancy between a set of observers in moonlight not necessarily being the same as might exist between them in daylight.

The colour of shadows in moonlight will require long study, and so will the tints or hues of trees in full leaf, near and distant, both in the direct rays and out of them; and it must be remembered that all moonlight effects will vary according to the state of the air and the brightness of the luminary.

The coloured cards furnished with the "Colour-Top" will help these inquiries, if they happen to be at hand; otherwise, books in various cloth bindings, and articles of clothing and ornament will readily supply what is required. Besides these a few strips of coloured glass, easily obtained from a glazier, will be wanted; but, when once attention has been called to the subject, an agreeable inquiry may be conducted with very little trouble and no expense.

VOL. IV.NO. II.

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MOST persons who are at all acquainted with natural history, are well aware that the classification of animals is not always a simple matter, that "any attempt to divide living beings by distinct lines of demarcation, as we mark out the minor divisions of a great kingdom on a map, are hopeless, unless we submit to endless exceptions, to frequent inconveniences, and occasional absurdities." There are creatures which in external appearance, in habits, or it may be in osteological or visceral formation, seem to belong rather to one class while they are actually members of another. The student of comparative anatomy feels no surprise at this-his surprise is to find the gradations from one typical form to another so incomplete. Between nearly all groups there are found intermediate forms, connecting links of greater or less importance; thus the Colugo, or flying lemur, to some extent connects the monkey and the bat; the Aard wolf (Proteles cristatus) comes between the hyena and the civet. The hyrax appears to present one of these intermediate or transition forms; for a long time it was regarded as a Rodent, and certainly a plantigrade creature, about the size of an ordinary wild rabbit, with thick, soft brown fur, and incisor-like teeth, with large brilliant eyes set forward in the head, and a moustachioed muzzle, living among rocks and in holes in banks, had some claim to be classed among hares and rabbits; and taking it to be, as it undoubtedly is, the Shâphân, or "coney" of Scripture, identified with the coney by the Rabbinical writers, classed with the hare in the sacred books,

Leviticus xi. 5; Deut. xiv. 7, there seems an apparent prescription in its favour.*

An examination of the skeleton and the intestinal canal shows that it is not a Rodent at all, but that it is a Pachyderm, allied to the horse and the hippopotamus, coming, among now existing animals, between the rhinoceros and the tapir-creatures as unlike it to all outward appearance as can well be conceived. H. N. Turner, in his proposed arrangement of the Perissodactyla, classes in order-Rhinoceros, Acerotherium (fossil), Elasmotherium (fossil), Hyrax, Palæotherium (fossil), Paloptotherium (fossil), Tapirus, etc. Professor Huxley, see Medical Times, of May 23rd, speaking of the classification of mammalia, tells us that though Cuvier endeavoured to prove hyrax a true Pachyderm, yet Milne-Edwards, from an investigation of certain peculiarities of its internal economy, considers that it has affinity with both Pachyderms and Rodents.

Naturalists speak of several species of hyrax, but I cannot make out more than five, if indeed variety is not rather the word to use of two of them. Perhaps the best known is the Hyrax Capensis, the rock-rabbit of South Africa; its habits are very similar to those of the H. Syriacus; each lives among the rocks, and is fond of basking in the sun, "feeding with apparent carelessness on the aromatic herbage of the mountain side; it is, however, tolerably secure, in spite of its apparent negligence, for a sentinel is always on guard ready to warn his companions by a peculiar shrill cry of the approach of danger." A second species is H. arboreus, described by Colonel Hamilton Smith; "it lives," he says, "in the hollows of decayed trees, which it climbs easily;" beyond this little is known. A third is Hyrax Habessinicus, which is found in great numbers in the Somali country, in Eastern Africa, latitude 9° north, longitude 47° east, reported upon by Captain J. H. Speke; I can learn no particulars of this. Again, there is H. dorsalis, described by Mr. Louis Frazer, Her Majesty's Consul at Whidah, as frequenting the island of Fernando Po, in the Bight of Biafra, of which Mr. Waterhouse writes, that he believes it to be entirely distinct from both H. Capensis and Syriacus, and is inclined to class it apart from arboreus. It is nocturnal in its habits, sleeps in trees all day, and feeds on leaves, etc., at night; though difficult to find, it is no doubt common, since its loud and peculiar cry is nightly heard during the rainy season; its native name is Naybar. Shaw in General Zoology, vol. ii. part 1, refers to a Hudson's

* Curiously enough, in the Septuagint, where the coney and the hare are both referred to, we find τον δασυποδα και τον χοιρογρύλλιον, where, in Psalm civ. 18 (Psalm ciii. of LXX.), the English translation has "conies," the word used is xvipoypurious (in textu Grabii Aaywous). In Proverbs xxx. 26, for "conies" again we find οι χοιρογρύλλιοι.

Bay hyrax, which "has two upper and four lower front rodentlike teeth; its feet are tetradactylous, like those of the Cape hyrax, and it has rounded claws on all the toes." I think this hyrax was known to no one else. The Abyssinian hyrax described by Bruce, and that found in Syria and Arabia, are probably identical, H. Syriacus. In the latter countries, he tells us it "is called Israel's sheep, or Gaunim Israel, from its frequenting the rocks of Horeb and Sinai, where the children of Israel made their forty years' peregrination."

There is a singular error in Griffith's Cuvier, vol. v. He says that the H. Syriacus differs from the South African species principally "in having only three toes on the anterior feet," and (which is correct) "long bristles or hairs dispersed over the upper part of the body." Again, in his description of the genus Hyrax, he gives "toes before, four or three; behind four," and, where he is as certainly wrong, 66 eyes small."

The specimen from which the accompanying drawing of the skeleton is taken was sent from Mar Saba, a deep rocky ravine in the wilderness of Judæa; it is that of a young adult male. The skin has been sacrificed that the skeleton might be perfect. The spinal column, it will be seen, is very close set; it contains seven cervical, twenty dorsal, eight lumbar vertebræ, add to these five sacral and six coccygeal. In the Cape hyrax Mr. Martin found seven cervical, twenty dorsal, and nine lumbar. Professor Owen also, when writing of the same species, gives twenty-nine as the dorso-lumbar vertebræ. Mr. Martin counts in Capensis the sacral and coccygeal as fourteen. In the H. Syriacus I can only make eleven. He gives for H. Capensis seven true and fourteen false ribs. In H. Syriacus there are seven true and thirteen false. These differences are curious in animals so nearly allied as the two species must be. The number of ribs on a side, twenty, is only exceeded in one mammal, the Bradypus didactylus, or two-toed sloth, which has twenty-two; no other quadruped approaches it; while its congeners the rhinoceros and tapir, have respectively sixteen and eighteen.*

The most marked peculiarity of the skull is the size and strength of the lower jaw, which is unusually massive, nothing we know of in the economy of the animal seeming to require a jaw so powerful; there is, in proportion, a greater depth and strength

* Professor Owen in his paper on the "Anatomy of the Auroch" writes:— "The constancy in the number of the true vertebræ in the Artiodactyle Ungulates is the more remarkable and demonstrative of their natural co-affinity, by contrast with the variable number of those vertebræ in the odd-toed, or Perisodactyle group, in which we find twenty-two dorso-lumbar vertebræ in the rhinoceros, twentythree in the tapir or palæotherium, and as many as twenty-nine in the little hyrax."