CAUNAUIA. 113 



impossible to wrest any thing from between their teeth that they 

 have once seized, and, among the Arabs, their name is the symbol 

 of obstinacy. It sometimes happens that an anchylosis of the cer- 

 vical vertebrae is the consequence of these violent efforts, and this 

 has caused it to be said that they have only one single bone in the 

 aeck. They are nocturnal animals, inhabiting caves ; are extremely 

 voracious, and feed chiefly on dead bodies, which they seek for even 

 in the grave. A thousand superstitious traditions are connected 

 with them. Three species are known, the 



H. vulgaris. Buff. Supp. Ill, xlvi. (The Striped Hyena.) 

 Grey j blackish or brown stripes crosswise ; a mane along the 

 whole of the nape of the neck, and black, that stands erect 

 Avhen the animal is angry. It is found from India to Abyssinia 

 and Senegal. 



H. brunnea, Thunb., Acad, of Stockh. 1820, part I, pi. 

 iij H. villosa, Smith. Lin. Trans. XV, pi. xix. (The Brown 

 Hyena.) Of a deep greyish brown ; black stripes on the legs 

 only. From the south of Africa, where the inhabitants of the 

 Cape call it le Loup du rivage, or the Shore Wolf. 



H. crocuta, Schreb. XCVI, B. (The Spotted Hyena.) 

 Grey or reddish, sprinkled with black spots. It is likewise 

 from the south of Africa, and is the Tiger Wolfo{ the Cape. 



There have lately been found in several caverns of France, 

 Germany, and England, many bones of a lost species of Hyena 

 H. spelaea, which appears to have resided there, and to have 

 left the bones of many other animals, which bear evident marks 

 of its teeth, and even its own feces.(l) 



Felis, Lin. 



Of all the Carnaria the Cats are the most completely and power- 

 fully armed. Their short and round muzzle, short jaws, and parti- 

 cularly their retractile nails, which, being raised perpendicularly, 

 and hidden between the toes, when at rest, by the action of elastic 

 ligament, lose neither point nor edge, render them most formidable 

 animals, the larger species especially. They have two false molars 

 above, and two below : their superior carnivorous tooth has three 

 lobes, and a blunted heel on the inner side, the inferior, two pointed 

 and trenchant lobes, without any heel : they have but a very small 

 tuberculous tooth above, without any thing to correspond to it be- 

 low. The species of this genus are very numerous and various 

 with regard to size and colour, though they are all similar with re- 



(1) See Buckland, Keliqui3e Diluvianse, and Vol. IV of my Oss. Foss. 2d ed. 

 Vol. I. P 



