THE HY^NA DOG 97 



the new animal, having frequently seen Burchell's 

 specimen while it was alive. He communicated his 

 views to Mr. Joshua Brookes, whose splendid collec- 

 tion in Blenheim Street, off Great Marlborough 

 Street, was only second to that of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons. Mr. Brookes beinof convinced sub- 

 sequently took Burchell into his well-filled 

 museum, and by a direct comparison of the 

 skeletons of a domestic dog, the hyaena dog and a 

 true hyaena, emphasised the osteological characters 

 of the wild hound. HycEna pictus of Temminck 

 became Lycaon pictus of Brookes. Temminck him- 

 self was afterwards (1829) disposed to rank it as a 

 dog. It is unfortunate that the apt name of Lycaon 

 tricolor, used by Griffith in his edition of Cuvier's 

 Animal Kingdom, can only be regarded as a 

 synonym, being antedated by two former titles.^ 



Distributed nearly all over Africa, south and east 

 of the Sahara Desert, the Cape hunting-dog may 

 be considered the scourge alike of veldt and bush- 

 country, of desert and scrub-jungle. The dominant 

 note in its character is a formidable mixture of 

 craft and boldness, joined to a persevering blood- 

 thirstiness little short of appalling. Combined in 



1 Col. Hamilton Smith's views do not seem to have met witli tlie imme- 

 diate acceptance which they deserved. In M. Deleuze's account of the Paris 

 Museum, publislied in 1823, we read that the collection included the 

 newly-discovered Hyccnct picta. Delejrorgue's term "cynhyone" aptly 

 expresses the status of the wild dog. By tlie way, tlie term " hy;ena 

 dug" was applied by Swainson to tlie aard wolf, whicii, from its stripes, 

 resembles a diminutive striped hya'na. Both spotted and striped hynenas 

 have thus nmre or less faitliful "doubles," recalling the case of the 

 clouded tiger and tlie marbled cat. 



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