Dr Knox on the Habits of the Hycena. 81 



are no houses, they will eat until they are filled to the mouth 

 within thirty yards of a great number of armed men. I saw 

 this happen ; — a large striped hyaena was killed, during the 

 night, by a sentinel, within thirty yards of an encampment of 

 nine hundred men ; on dissecting the animal, it was very evi- 

 dent that it had been engaged otherwise than dragging the 

 bones ti its den, (possibly twenty miles off,) for its stomach 

 was so enormously distended with the offal of the cattle which 

 had been felled all round the camp for the use of the troops, 

 that it seemed, at first sight, to occupy the whole abdominal 

 cavity. Now this dissection was, performed by me before 

 hundreds of persons. 



2. I feel surprised that Mr Buckland can have forgot the 

 account Bruce gives of a hyaena which ate, during the night, 

 and close to his tent, more than would have sufficed half-a- 

 dozen dogs. It is true, that Mr Bruce's reviewers made it 

 out, that the hyaena had ate more than his own weight ; but, 

 setting aside this part of the story, which, of course, is a di- 

 verting exaggeration, Mr Bruce might have told his review- 

 ers, that until they had examined the stomach of the hyaena, 

 they could not well imagine its vast capacity, commensurate 

 with the natural voraciousness of the animal. I could easily 

 multiply these instances from my own experience, for there 

 were killed sometimes four or five hyaenas within eight days, 

 close to our habitations. Assuredly these animals were not 

 busied in carrying away bones to remote caverns for future 

 geologists to speculate upon. 



3. It is not improbable that, in thickly inhabited countries, 

 the habits of the hyaena may be much altered, as we find to be 

 the case in all other wild animals.* When much harassed 

 they become timid, and fly far from the abodes of men. I 



* My friend, Dr Versfeld, a native of the Cape, informs me, that he has, 

 on two occasions, observed caves in the Table Mountain, in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of Cape Town, which contained a few bones, apparently of 

 some ruminating animal ; he ascribed the presence of these bones in the 

 caves to the agency of hyaenas, with which opinion I entirely agree. When 

 we reflect on the proximity of so populous a town as the Cape to the Table 

 Mountain, it is quite surprising that large collections of bones have not 

 been found in its caves ; the number of hyaenas inhabiting these moun- 

 tains must be very great. 



VOL. III. NO. I. JULY 1825. F 



