NATIONAL ZOOLOGICAL PARK HOLLISTER 311 



canine teeth are exceptionally long. The clouded leopard has quite 

 an extensive distribution and is found from the mountains of 

 northern India to the islands of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo. 



The cheetah, known also as the " hunting leopard," is sometimes 

 trained to hunt the antelope and other game. Long limbed and 

 slender, with high rounded head, and with claws less retractile than 

 in the other cats, he has many points of resemblance with the dog; 

 this resemblance is not confined to external appearance, but is found 

 also in the muscles. A pair of African cheetahs {Acinonyx jubatus) 

 was brought over in 1913 by the head keeper of the park from the 

 Government Zoological Garden, Giza, Egypt. They have developed 

 splendidly here and may be considered one of the most important 

 exhibits. 



CIVETS AND HYENAS 



The civet cats and their allies, the mongooses, genets, and palm 

 civets comprise the family Viverridse. They are of diverse types 

 and are native to the Old World, but one species of mongoose has 

 been introduced in some of the West Indian Islands where it has 

 nearly exterminated many of the native species of birds. Regula- 

 tions against the introduction of this pest into the United States are 

 rigidly enforced, but a specimen was, nevertheless, killed in Ken- 

 tucky in 1920. How the animal came to be there is not known. It 

 is greatly to be hoped that the mongoose will never get a foothold 

 in any part of the United States, as the practical extermination of 

 many of our finest ground-nesting game birds would surely follow 

 its introduction. 



The spotted hyena (Orocuta crocuta) is the commonest African 

 species of the family Hysenidse. He is a large, powerful brute with 

 jaws and teeth specially developed for crushing bones. The speci- 

 men kept in the lion house is a great pet and is excited to supreme 

 content by a little attention. Unlike the great cats, he pays not 

 the slightest attention to bones in the meat fed to him, but crushes 

 even the largest as easily and rapidly as if he were eating much 

 softer food. A smaller species, the striped hyena, inhabits India 

 and northern Africa, and a much rarer kind, the brown hyena, or 

 "strand wolf" (Hyaina brunnea), is confined to parts of Africa. 

 Hyenas are essentially carrion eaters and are largely nocturnal in 

 habits. 



The aard-wolf (Proteles aistatus) is related to the hyenas, but is 

 a much smaller animal with much less powerful teeth. The teeth, 

 in fact, are so reduced and simplified as to be of very little use, 

 and the animal feeds very largely upon termites and other insects. 

 The aard-wolf inhabits Africa from Nubia to the Cape. It is very 

 rarely seen in collections of living animals. The specimen in the 

 National Zoological Park is on exhibition in the antelope house. 



