58 DESULTORY SKETCHES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



handle, even by their keepers. In travelling menageries, this ani- 

 mal is commonly termed the Tortoiseshell Hysena. 



We now pass to a genus, the dentition and general structure of 

 which, in reference to a special object, exhibits remarkable mo- 

 dification. 



The Hyjenas (Uysena* Storr), 



Are the largest of the Viverridae, few Dogs surpassing some of 

 them in bulk and stature. Their prodigious strength of jaw, which 

 far exceeds that of every other animal, is attained by a general 

 modification of the parts in any way concerned to produce it. The 

 muzzle is shortened, while the scissor-teetht and false molars are 

 much enlarged ; hence the tuberculous grinders are necessarily both 

 sacrificed in the lower jaw, and one of them in the upper, the other 

 being exceedingly reduced, and not situate behind the scissor- tooth, 

 where there is no room left for it but inward of its posterior extre- 

 mity. The upper scissor-tooth has the usual great internal rooted 

 tubercle ; but the inferior — save in H. vulgaris — has none, present- 

 ing only two stout and keenly-cutting lobes, with merely a trace of 

 the hindward tuberculous portion in H. crocuta and the fossil H. spe^ 

 lasa, which however is more developed in the others : the small 

 retained true grinder is also most reduced in //. crocuta, and the 

 extinct species adverted to. There are three anterior false molars 

 each side of both jaws, the first, particularly above, comparatively 

 small ; the third above and second below, enormously bulky ; the 

 third inferior somewhat less, and the second above moderate ; all 

 forming stout cones, in which the secondary cusps merge almost to 

 obliteration in H. crocuta and H. spelaea, less so in H. brunnea, and 

 still less in H. vulgaris, the dentition of which is least typical of 

 any. The external pair of superior incisive teeth are much en- 

 larged and lengthened, and the incisors generally present broad 

 opposing surfaces. In conformity with this increased strength and 

 massiveness of the cutting molars, the jaws are necessarily stout in 



• 'Ta/v«, a Sow ; in reference, perhaps, to the arched and bristled back of 

 the species known to the ancients, or possibly to its habit of scratching up 

 the surface of the soil for bulbs. 



-|- We use this expressive term to designate the carnivorous or cutting 

 molar, styled the camassier by the French : this tooth is essentially the last 

 of the anterior or false molars, peculiarly modified throughout the Ferce, Lin. 



