of the horizontal ramus, and a greater convexity of the ascending ramus than in other known quadrupeds. In hyrax, as in the armadilloes, the muscular system has this great peculiarity, that the digastric muscle of the lower jaw arises from the upper part of the sternum instead of from the occiput or temporal bone, and it is inserted into the whole ramus or angle of the lower jaw. It is of remarkable size and strength, and it is this muscle which occasions the peculiar fulness of the neck in hyrax. The general conformation of the skull is wide shaped and compact, and somewhat abrupt anteriorly; the eye sockets are large, and placed forward; the auditory meatus is small, a well-developed post-tympanic process seems to take the place of the mastoid. The dentition presents a marked resemblance to that of the rhinoceros. The molars are fourteen in each jaw, the larger ones being placed farthest back, the anterior ones are said to fall out soon after the animal has attained its full growth; they have not been shed in the skeleton before me.

In Cuvier I read that two canines are found in the upper jaw of the young animal, but there are no traces of any here. The incisors are two above, placed apart, and four below, the outer pair being much larger than the inner ones.

The fore feet, as in the elephant, have each four digits; they are the second, third, fourth, and fifth. (In this specimen is seen a rudimentary first digit, which, however, is probably abnormal.) Each digit is buried in the skin as far as the little hoof or nail, which, however, only covers the upper, not the lower surface. The whole foot is placed to the ground, and has a callous sole. (All other Pachydermata are, I believe, digitigrade.) The hind foot, which bears a striking resemblance to that of the rhinoceros, has only three digits, the second, third, and fourth; the third and fourth having nails like the fore feet, the second being armed with a claw, curved and pointed; the fore part of the astragalus is divided into two very unequal facets; the os magnum and the digitus medius which it supports are large. The stomach is certainly not that of a ruminant, though it to some extent approaches that type. It has strong muscular fibres about the middle, which partially constrict it, and serve in some degree to divide it into two pouches; the organ is at this part folded upon itself, but there is no valve between these pouches and no intermediate receptacle for undigested food. Mr. R. Reed says of the Cape hyrax that the specimens he shot had their stomachs much distended with scarcely masticated food, and further says of one he had in confinement that he had heard it chewing its food by night, he believes ruminating when everything around was quiet. The small intestine, which is not much thicker than a goose-quill, has about twelve glandular pouches from

three to five inches apart, about three lines in depth, with their orifices placed towards the cœcum. Their use is not very

clear.

The cœcum has a great analogy to that of the hare, and other Rodents, being sacculated and distended with a black pultaceous matter; in form one would compare it with that of the tapir, its magnitude arising more from its breadth than its length. The whole length of the intestinal canal is about six times the length of the animal Owen adds, in looking at the vertebrata for an analogous form of intestinal canal, hyrax stands nearly alone. Among mammalia it is only in a few of the Edentata that the double coecum is met with, as in myrmecophaga, didactyla, and dasypus 6-cinctus; while in birds, although the double cœcum more generally prevails, yet an additional single cœcum anterior to these has only been found in a few species. In the bird, however, the single anterior cœcum exhibits merely a trace of structure peculiar to embryonic life, in hyrax it evidently performs an important part of digestion. He considers that the double cœcum of hyrax indicates an affinity to the group which intervenes in the system of Cuvier between the order in which it was originally placed and the one to which Cuvier transferred it. It is interesting to note that while the facies of hyrax so far simulates that of a rodent as to have deceived the older naturalists, yet nature, as if in abhorrence to the saltus, has left in the internal structure an impression borrowed from the type of the Edentata.

swer.

The question whether hyrax ruminates is not easy to anI have the authority of Professor Huxley for asserting that the non-possession of a ruminant stomach is no proof that the action is impossible, and cases are recorded on the part of the hare, the kangaroo, and even of man himself, though in each of these it has certainly been an abnormal act. The stomach of the hyrax, partially constricted by a sphincter muscle, and having no cardiac valve, renders it perfectly possible that it is a habit of the animal generally, as it certainly seems to have been of the one kept by Mr. Reed, referred to above.

The soft, deep fur of the hyrax is unique among the Pachyderms, and more closely resembles that of the Rodents in appearance; its microscopic character is however totally unlike theirs. The close hair of the peccary is bristly, more like the long, black, erinaceous hairs which are scattered over the coat of the hyrax. Bruce imagined that it was from these hairs that the animal derived its Abyssinian name of Ashkoko, from ashkok, a thorn. These hairs are absent in Capensis. The fur, which is of a greyish-brown, does not, as before stated, extend to the under surface of the feet. The ears are small, rounded, and white within; the snout, which in every other species of

this genus is more or less prolonged, is in hyrax short, and is furnished with labial whiskers like many of the Rodentia.

The habits of the animal much resemble those of the rabbit; it is very timid, and alive to the approach of danger. If this is, as is believed, the coney of Scripture, its description there is especially fitting. They are a "feeble folk," who "make their houses in the rocks," which are thus a "refuge for the conies." Though they can bite sharply when handled, they are in no way fitted for self-defence, and have a lively instinct of self-preservation, and are "exceeding wise" in availing themselves of shelter. They are gregarious, and, as I learn from a friend who has visited their haunts in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, they seldom leave the wild rocks among which they hide in the broad daylight, but for a short time about sunrise, and from an hour before sunset until dark. He has seen them, though never able to approach very near, coming out in parties to feed, and frolicking about in the nimblest fashion their heavy bodies and short legs allow, feeding on the young shoots chiefly of the Scilla maritima which abounds there, while one of their number is always posted on some ledge of rock to keep a look-out and warn them of danger; he does this by a plaintive warning cry, when they all immediately scuttle away to their holes-the slightest movement or shadow of the enemy is sufficient. They principally depend on the power of their sight, not on their hearing, which, from the form and the small aperture of their ears, is far less perfect than their sight; in fact, he has spoken to an attendant when on the cliffs immediately over head without disturbing them. Bruce, probably in ignorance of the nature of their food, tells how he shut up a tame one, fasting, with fowls and smaller birds, but "he never showed any alteration of behaviour in their presence, but treated them with a kind of absolute indifference." They are very cleanly, and are said to be good eating, but of this last we have no evidence.

Note. I have spoken of the hyrax as the coney of Scripture. Kitto says that it was first on the authority of the Rabbinical writers that the shâphan has been identified with the coney. There is no native rabbit in Syria; the only other animal which could be considered the shâphân was the jerboa, and this was held by Burckhardt; but the habits of the jerboa do not correspond with the Scriptural descriptions.-See Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, under the head of "CONEY."

MOSSES have a species of arithmetical progression which, as far as we are aware, is peculiar to themselves; and on examining with the microscope the orifice of the little urn containing the spores or seed, we shall find that some genera, as Sphagnum (Bog Moss), Gymnostomum, Anæctangium, and Stylostegium (Beardless Mosses), etc., are destitute of the little circle of fringe which we call peristome, or teeth. Next in arithmetical order will come Tetraphis and Tetradontium, each possessing four teeth; then the lesser Yoke Moss, and Mr. Forster's Yoke Moss with eight teeth; then many genera with a peristome of sixteen teeth, others with thirty-two teeth, and others again with sixty-four. But we shall search in vain for any intervening numbers.

The Tetraphis pellucida, fruiting in this month, has been selected for our present consideration. Its generic name is

* Explanation of the Cut.-Fig. 1. Tetraphis pellucida, nat. size. Fig. 2. Stem, showing crown of broadly ob-cordate leaves surrounding the gemma of the immature plant. Fig. 3. Capsule, mag. Fig. 4. Calyptra, mag. Fig. 5. Lid, mag. Fig. 6 and 7. Lower and upper leaves of the stem, mag. Fig. 8. Areolæ, or net-work of the leaf, highly magnified.

derived from τετρα, for τετορα, four; and a derivative of φυω, meaning a process or production, in allusion to its four prominences or teeth. It is a perennial, and grows in dense patches on the decaying roots of trees in shady and rocky places, as also on banks in a peaty soil.

Having terminal fruit it belongs to the Acrocarpous section of mosses; and in the Calyptra, which is mitriform, irregularly plicate, and lacerated at the base, it has considerable resemblance to the Orthotrichums, which we considered in our July number; it also resembles them in the internal structure of the fruit, that portion of the columella which is included within the peristome, separating from the cellular tissue that fills up the interior of the lid above the peristome; a structure, it may be remembered, observable in Polytrichum.*

The stems of Tetraphis pellucida are slender, erect, simple, or dichotomous, i. e., forked with the branches in pairs; when old crowded together, growing from a common base to the height of from half an inch to an inch, bearing small scattered leaves in the lower parts, but crowned with a tuft of larger, longer, and more crowded leaves at the summit, or with a cupshaped cluster of very broad leaves, surrounding a group of pedicellate lentiformet gemmæt. These leaves, except at the summit of the fertile stem, are mostly three ranked, ovatelanceolate, sub-erect, the upper ones larger and more spreading, variously curved, and entire in the margin; and under the microscope, they present a beautiful piece of hexagonal reticulation, from the shape of the areolae, or spaces between the cellules of the leaf. The nerve ceases below the apex.

The inflorescence is monoicous, the flowers are gemmiform or bud-like, and the barren flower issues from a branch growing out of an abortive fertile flower. The antheridia, which are analogous to the anthers of flowering plants, are mixed with filiform paraphyses, or succulent jointed, hair-like bodies, and the archegonia, which answer to the pistils of flowering plants, are few.

The capsule is of a yellowish brown colour, sub-cylindrical, regular or slightly bent, with a red tumid border at the mouth, and seated on a reddish fruit-stalk about half an inch or more in length. The peristome is inserted below the orifice of the capsule, and permanently united to the included portion of the columella, which, with it, is divided into four pyramidal teeth, each being marked with longitudinal striæ. The calyptra is whitish, but brown at the apex; and the capsules usually solitary, though sometimes two are found together. The plant is of a light green above, reddish below, and at the base, con

* Vide No. 16 of the INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER.
Lentiforme, shaped like a vetch seed.

Loose granular bodies capable of becoming plants.