HVANIDz. 203 
with what I had seen and learnt, but it took me a long time to get the 
smell of the Vardis out of my head. The next morning I went to see 
the cheetahs and found that they had been tied spread-eagle fashion on 
the carts, and with their hoods firmly tied. They were a pair, and in 
all probability the parents of the two smaller ones. Women and 
children are told off to sit all day long close to the animals, and keep 
up a conversation, so that they should get accustomed to the human 
voice. The female was snarling a good deal, the male being much 
quieter ; they go through various gradations of education, and I was 
told they would be ready to be unhooded and worked in about 
six months’ time. The man who had his hand bitten was suffering 
from considerable inflammation. I had him attended to, and, after 
rewarding them with ‘baksheesh,’ I let them proceed on their way 
rejoicing.” 
Chita kittens are very pretty little things, quite grey, without any spots 
whatever, but they can always be recognised by the black stripe down 
the nose, and on cutting off a little bit of the soft hair I noticed that 
the spots were quite distinct in the under fur. I have not seen this 
fact alluded to by others. As a rule the young of all cats, even the 
large one-coloured species, such as the lion and puma, are spotted, 
but the hunting leopard is externally an exception, although the spots 
are there lying hid. I had several of them at Seonee. 
HYANIDA:—THE HYAENAS. 
The second family of the Eluroidea contains only one genus, the 
fTyena, which, though somewhat resembling the dog in outward 
appearance, connects the cat with the civet. The differences between 
the Felide and the Viverride, setting aside minor details, are in the 
teeth, and the possession by the latter of a caudal pouch. My readers 
are now familiar with the simple cutting form of the feline teeth, which 
are thirty innumber. The civets have no less than forty, and the grinders, 
instead of having cutting scissor-like edges, are cuspidate, or crowned 
with tubercles. Now the hyena comes in as an intermediate form. 
He has four more premolars than the typical cat, and the large grinding 
teeth are conical, blunt and very powerful, the base of the cone being 
belted by a strong ridge, and the general structure is one adapted for 
crushing rather than cutting. Professor Owen relates that an eminent 
engineer, to whom he showed a hyzena’s jaw, remarked that the strong 
conical tooth, with its basal ridge, was a perfect model of a hammer for 
breaking stones, 
Of course, sucha formation would be useless without a commensurate 
