244 CARNIVORA. 



THE SPOTTED HYAENA, 



The Spotted Hy.ena, Hyana croaita (Plate XIII), is the largest of th^ 

 tribe, and is distinguished by its powerful frame and spotted fur. The 

 latter consists of a whitish-gray ground, inclining more or less to fawn- 

 color, with brown spots on the sides and limbs. The head is brown, the 

 cheeks reddish, the tail ringed with brown, and tipped with black. Some 

 trifling varieties of these colors are found, some specimens being lighter, 

 some darker. The animal attains a length of over four feet, and stands 

 nearly three feet high. 



The Spotted Hyaena inhabits Southern and Eastern Africa, from the 

 Cape of Good Hope to the 17th degree North Latitude. It is common 

 in the Soudan and Abyssinia, and when it is found in large numbers it 

 drives away the Striped Hyaena. Its size and strength render it :nuch 

 more an object of dread than the latter, and many obsen'ers agree in 

 stating that it will attack men, especially if they are asleep or weary, 

 and that, when hunger conquers its native cowardice, it will enter villages 

 even in the daytime, and carry off children or the sheep returning frona 

 the pasture to the folds or enclosures. 



The title Tiger Wolf was given it by the farmers of the Cape of Good 

 Hope, where it is very common, and where every farm-house has a trap 

 set for this prowling marauder. One method of killing it is to fix a 

 loaded musket on a couple of posts about thirty inches from the ground. 

 A string is then carried from the trigger through a ring at the butt, and 

 then forward to the muzzle, where it is attached to a piece of meat. The 

 hysena scents the meat, seizes it between his teeth, and thus draws the 

 trigger and lodges the bullet in his brain. The natives regard it with 

 dread, and justly. Strodtmann relates that in a few months he heard 

 of forty deaths of children caused by the Tiger Wolf; these hungry 

 hyjenas enter the kraals of the Kaffirs, venture even near the blazing fire 

 where the family is sleeping, and carry off a child from under its mother's 

 cloak before they can be intercepted. 



It is this species which is the subject of the fables we have already 

 mentioned, and which deserves to be called " The Laughing Hyana." 

 Of all the Camivora it is the most repulsive and voracious : it is stupid, 

 malicious, and only capable of being tamed to a certain degree by the 

 whip. In captivity it lies for hours like a log, then leaps up, rubs itself 



