102 MAMMALS. 



Asia, had a imicli more northern range during the earlier recess of the ghicial epoch. The remains 

 of a large Cave sijecies, Hy.^na sPELiEA, are found often in England, France, and Germany, in the 

 same caves as those of the Cave Tiger or Lion, and the other extinct animals associated with 

 it. It was most nearly allied to the fierce Spotted HysBna (XIy.exa crocuta) of the Cape, and there- 

 fore may, like it, have been a spotted one. It seems not to have extended further south than the 

 middle of Em-ope. 



The two species now living in Africa, the Striped Hyaena (II. vulgakis) and the Spotted 

 Hj^sena (H. crocuta), are supposed to have inhabited Europe at that time ; some fossil remains 

 found in the Pyrenees, and also in Auvergne, having been referred with doubt to the former ; and 

 the latter advanced probably as far north as the south flank of the Pyrenees. Fossil remains of it 

 have been found in Sicily and Algiers. There is nothing in the climate of the south of Europe to 

 prevent it living there now. This would give a range of the existing Hyaenas south of the 

 Pyrenees and Aljjs, leaving the more northern parts of Europe for the cave species ; according 

 to some palaeontologists many extinct species have existed in Europe, but on a rigid examina- 

 tion they have by others been reduced to three. It therefore was probably unknown in Africa 

 proper imtil after the elevation of the Sahara. 



Lund found bones which he referred to this genus in the caverns of Brazil, but this is now 

 ascertained to have been an erroneous determination. "With this exception (which is no exception) 

 I am not aware of any statement of the Hyajna having been found in the New World. It 

 does not occur amongst the extinct species which have been detected in the Nebraska and Nio- 

 brai'a Miocene deposits ; remains of the HyjENODon, indeed, have been found in the Niobrara deposits 

 as well as in Euroi:)e, but that is an animal which, although it bears a name akin to the Hyaena, has 

 no more relation to it tlian to any other feline or carnivorous species of the same size, if it even 

 belongs to them at all. I)e Blaiuville classed it among tlie dogs ; but the opinion of Cuvier and 

 Laurillard was, that it was rather allied to the opossums. 



Remains of a fossil species of H3''aena have also been discovered in the Ilimmalayahs. All 

 trace of the Cave Hyaena and Cave Lion disappears in the upper dejDosits of diluvium ; as M. Lartet 

 points out, none are cited by M. Desnoyers among the bones of the Reindeer, the Spermophiles, 

 the Hamster, and Lagomj^s, which he collected in the wells around Paris. 



Deducting varieties or doubtful species there are only three existing species of Hytena. Of 

 these the Striped Hyaena ranges through India, Persia, Turkey, Abyssinia, Egypt, Nubia, Libya, 

 Algeria, Barbary, West Africa, and the Cape of Good Hope. In Johnston's " Physical Atlas," 

 the range of this Hyaena is made to extend far up into Indei:)endent Tartary, on the east of the 

 Caspian, but not to reach India. I cannot find any evidence of its being found so far to the north 

 as it is there represented, and it is certainly found everywhere in India, with the exception of the 

 lower part of Bengal, near Calcutta, which it now rai'ely reaches.* It is even found in the 

 Himmalaj-ahs, although very rarely. Mr. Everest mentions that he met with it there. The other 

 two, the Brown and the Spotted Hyaenas, are both from the Cape of Good Hope. 



There is an animal (Proteles cristatus, or Lalaxdii), the Aard Wolf, or Earth Wolf of 

 the Cape Colonists, whose proper place seems to be here. It is an aberrant form, which partakes 

 of the characters both of the Civets and the Hyaenas. It looks like a small Hya?na, with tlic teeth 



* Blttu, " Catalogue of Mammalia," in Museum of Asiatic Society, 1863, p. 44. 



