82 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE. 



purpose, as a scavenger, devouring all the offal which comes 

 in its way, including the dead of his own species which no 

 other animal will touch. The hysena can be tamed and 

 taught to follow its master and to hunt other animals. 



The striped Bruce tells the following story of the impudence 

 Hyaena, of the striped hyaena. "One night in Maitsha, 

 being very intent on observation, I heard something pass 

 behind me towards the bed, but upon looking round could 

 perceive nothing. Having finished what I was then about, I 

 went out of my tent, resolving directly to return, which I 

 immediately did, when I perceived large blue eyes glaring at 

 me in the dark. I called upon my servant with a light; and 

 there was the hyaena standing nigh the head of the bed, with 

 two or three large bunches of candles in his mouth. To have 

 fired at him, I was in danger of breaking my quadrant or 

 other furniture ; and he seemed, by keeping the candles steadily 

 in his mouth, to wish for no other prey at that time. As his 

 mouth was full, and he had no claws to tear with, I was not 

 afraid of him, but with a pike struck him as near the heart 

 as I could judge. It was not till then he showed any sign 

 of fierceness; but, upon feeling his wound, he let drop the 

 candles, and endeavoured to run up the shaft of the spear 

 to arrive at me ; so that, in self-defence, I was obliged to draw 

 out a pistol from my girdle and shoot him, and nearly at the 

 same time my servant cleft his skull with a battle-axe. In a 

 word, the hysena was the plague of our lives, the terror of 

 our night-walks, the destruction of our mules and asses, which 

 above all others are his favourite food." 



The Spotted The spotted hysena belongs to South Africa 

 Hyaena. an( j seems to possess more daring than his cousin 

 of Abyssinia, and to show a greater preference for human 

 food. According to Mr. Stepstone, the Mambookies build 

 their houses in the form of a beehive from eighteen to twenty 

 feet in diameter, placing a raised platform at the back and 

 leaving the front-area for the accommodation of the calves 



