HUNTING-DOG,.—Lycuon vencticus. 
Just as the Aard wolf appears to form the link between the civets and the hyenas, 
being with some difficulty referred to either group of animals, so the Hunting-Dog 
seems to be the connecting link between the dogs and the hyenas. Its position, however, 
in the scale of animated nature is so very obscure that it has been placed by some 
zoologists among the dogs and by others among the hyznas. As, however, the leading 
characteristic of its formation appears to tend rather towards the canine than the 
hywnine type, the Hunting-Dog has been provisionally placed at the end of the dogs 
rather than at the end of the hyenas. 
In its general aspect there is much of the hyznine character, and the creature -has 
often been mistaken for a hyena, and described under that name. There is, however, 
less of the hyzenine type than is seen in the Aard wolf, for the peculiar ridge of hair that 
decorates the neck of the hyena is absent in the Hunting-Dog, and the hinder 
quarters are not marked by that strange sloping form which is so characteristic of the 
hyena and the Aard wolf itself. The teeth are almost precisely like those of the dogs, with 
the exception of a slight difference in the false molars, and therefore are quite distinct 
from those of the hyenas. But the feet are only furnished with four toes instead of five, 
which is a characteristic of the hyenas, and not of the dogs. Several other remarkable 
points of structure are found in this curious animal, some of them tending to give it a 
position among the dogs, and others appearing to refer it to the hyeenas. 
The general colour of the Hunting-Dog is a reddish or yellowish brown, marked at 
wide intervals with large patches of black and white. The nose and muzzle are black, 
and the central line of the head is marked with a well-defined black stripe, which reaches 
to the back of the head. The ears are extremely large, and are covered on both their 
faces with rather short black hairs. From their inside edge rises a large tuft of long 
white hair, which spreads over and nearly fills the cavity of the ear. The tail is covered 
