CHAP. VI. LEOPARDS. 307 



ingly common all over the comitry outside the colonies, 

 and its mournful howl is to be heard every night as one 

 reaches the more thinly populated districts. Three 

 species have been observed by different travellers in 

 Africa, with only one of which — H. crocuta, or the spotted 

 hyena — I am personally acquainted, though both the 

 other two occur in the districts of the east coast through 

 which I have travelled. The former, which is the largest, 

 most powerful, and most savage of the three, is distri- 

 buted over the whole of 'Africa below the latitude of 

 17° N.^ They exhibit a great variety of markings, and 

 differ considerably in colour, the spots being sometimes 

 light and indistinct, at others, on the contrary, dark and 

 well defined. It has been suggested that the variegated 

 species found on the east coast, and mentioned by Speke, 

 is a cross between ff. crocuta and the striped hyena of 

 the northern deserts, but, though its size, markings, and 

 colour give a shadow of probability to the idea, it is 

 extremely doubtful whether such is the case. 



Treacherous, cowardly, and savage in their habits, as 

 all the species are, they are invariably killed whenever op- 

 portunity offers. I have at different times shot specimens 

 of the common spotted kind ; sometimes at night, when 

 they have come prowling round our camp in search of any- 

 thing they could find — despising nothing edible between 

 a sleeping child and a leathern strap ; sometimes as they 

 lumbered homewards at their ungainly gallop when day- 

 light has overtaken them while still at some distance from 

 their holes ; and, more rarely, after having put them out 

 of some dense thicket, in which they had made a tem- 



1 Heart of Africa — Schweinfurth. 



