THE SPOTTED HY^NA 



hide, or grovel on the ground behind its master. 

 In Abyssinia, where the towns and villages are 

 surrounded by walls, the hyjenas do all the sca- 

 vaging, and take the place of a sanitary service. 

 The inhabitants leave holes in the city walls, through 

 which the hyaenas creep in the dead of night to eat 

 up the refuse. The people before nightfall deposit 

 all their household filth before their doors, knowing 

 full well that before morning the hyaenas will have 

 cleared it all away. In the Soudan and many other 

 parts of Central and Northern Africa, battles are 

 frequently fought between rival tribes of natives, 

 Arabs, and others, no effort being made to bury the 

 dead, which indeed would be so much wasted 

 energy, for what remnants of the bodies the hyaenas 

 might leave are devoured by other carnivorous 

 animals or carrion birds. 



Because of the sanitary services performed by 

 these animals, they are not interfered with in those 

 regions, although they at times destroy numbers 

 of sheep ; but so well guarded by the shepherd are 

 the flocks that a chance for a meal of mutton seldom 

 presents itself. 



In the Spotted Hyaena we have a remarkable 

 example of an animal possessing prodigious strength, 

 powerful jaws, and terrible teeth, of so cowardly a 

 nature that, should an animal with few if any powers 

 of defence present a bold and threatening front, it 

 will slink away in abject fear. This trait of char- 

 acter makes it clear that a brain centre which is 



89 



