THE BROWN HY^NA 4! 



the whole country as far as St. John's River. As a 

 consequence of these wars thousands of corpses lay 

 rotting on the veldt, a feast for hyaena and vulture. 

 The unhappy natives being too distracted to molest 

 them, the strandwolves became exceedingly fierce 

 and dangerous; stimulated by plenty of human food 

 they even ventured to attack living persons. The 

 Rev. Theophilus Shepstone, a missionary stationed 

 in Mamboland, stated that in a few months he heard 

 of no less than forty attacks on persons asleep in 

 their huts. Even lighted fires did not deter the 

 strandwolves ; they passed the calves in the outer 

 yard (which at other times they would have readily 

 attacked) and drew sleeping infants so deftly from 

 under the mother's kaross that she was only 

 awakened by the cries of her child. 1 



A hyaena tore away part of the face of a little lad ; 

 and on another night the same beast carried a boy 

 right off, only a small fragment of the victim being 

 found. A third time the marauder appeared, and 

 seized a boy about ten years old. Thus terribly 

 awakened, the lad pluckily struck his assailant, 

 compelling him to let go. The hyaena again seized 

 him in his vice-like jaws, breaking his collar bone, 

 but the unfortunate lad still struggling, dropped him 

 again. With terrible pertinacity the animal once 



1. A similar increase in the hyaenas of Somaliland was recently 

 noticed. On the cessation of hostilities against the Mad Mullah numbers 

 of these ravenous brutes wandered about the country, their occupation 

 gone. 



