206 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
regiment he was with when I first knew him) being carried off by a 
hyena whose den was known. Some of the sepoys went after it, 
entered the cave, killed the hyzena, and recovered the dog alive, and 
with but little damage done to it. 
The hyzena is of a timorous nature, seldom, if ever, showing fight. 
Two of them nearly ran over me once as I was squatting on a deer run 
waiting for sambar, which were being beaten out of a hill. I flung my 
hat in the face of the leading one, on which both turned tail and fled. 
The Arabs have a proverb, ‘‘ As cowardly as a hyzena.” 
The Cryptoprocta ferox is not an inhabitant of India, being found 
only in the interior of Madagascar. The genus contains only one 
species, 2 most savage little animal ; it is the most perfect link between 
fyena striata. 
the cats and the civets, having retractile claws, one more premolar in 
each jaw; five toes, and semi-plantigrade feet. It should properly 
come before the hyzenas, to which the next in order is the South African 
Aard-wolf (Proteles Lalandii), which forms the connection between the 
hyzena and the civet, though more resembling the former. It-is placed 
in a family by itself, which contains but one genus and species. It has 
the sloping back of the hyzena, the hind legs being lower than the fore, 
and it might almost, from its shape and colouring, be taken for that 
animal when young. ‘The skull however is prolonged, and the teeth 
are civet-like. It is nocturnal and gregarious, several living in the 
same burrow. Like the hyzena it lives on carrion. It has a fifth toe on 
the fore feet. 
