THE BROWN HY.ENA 43 



calf, assisted by another which had recently lost her 

 young one, had managed to beat off the hyaenas. 

 The unfortunate calf though terribly mangled 

 managed to get home, but died some time after- 

 wards. A strandwolf now in the Capetown Museum 

 is said to have killed three large calves before it 

 was shot. 



Dr. Sparrman relates a story which will be of 

 service to temperance reformers. A drunken 

 trumpeter, overcome by strong waters at a convivial 

 meeting, was carried helpless out of doors and laid 

 down to cool. To him entered a hyaena a spotted 

 one this time. Perhaps mistaking him for a corpse, 

 it ran off with him, so that the man woke to find 

 himself in an ugly predicament, being at very close 

 quarters with an antagonist capable of cracking his 

 bones like biscuits. Luckily the drunkard had 

 enough wit to blow his trumpet, thus scaring off the 

 hyaena. Since Sparrman's day this story has become 

 quite a venerable chestnut, reappearing in several 

 guises. Thus in one story " Piet the bugler" scares 

 off a lion, which had seized him when asleep, by an 

 impromptu solo on his bugle ; in another a man 

 seized by a tiger frightens him away by letting off 

 fireworks which he conveniently happened to have 

 in his pocket ! 



The brown hyaena was first described by Sparrman 

 in 1785 from a specimen taken at the Cape; but the 

 doctor supposed it to be the striped hyaena of North 



