48 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



In view of the increasing rarity of the strand wolf, 

 it has been thought advisable to complete a census of 

 museum specimens ; for, though threatened men 

 may live long, threatened animals are apt to become 

 extinct with unlooked for rapidity almost before they 

 are known to be rare. The following examples of 

 the brown hyaena have been recorded : 



1. Steedman's adult specimen. 



2. Steedman's young specimen. 



3. Example in the South African Museum, Cape- 

 town, taken at Groenkloof in the Malmesbury 

 division of Cape Colony. 



4. Specimen from the Nieuwveld near Beaufort 

 West, now in the South African Museum. 



5. Female specimen in the same collection taken 

 in the Fish River Bush near Grahamstown. 



6. Adult male and cranium obtained by Dr. Von 

 Horstock in Caffraria, on November 23rd, 1829, and 

 now in the Leyden Museum. 



7. The Royal College of Surgeons' Museum 

 contains the skeleton of an old female which lived 

 over thirteen years in the Zoological Gardens. 



8. 9. Two skulls at the College of Surgeons, one 

 of these from Gordon Cumming's collection. 1 



1. Probably referring to this individual, Gumming says " I started a 

 strandwolf, or fuscous hyaena, which I rode into and slew." This occurred 

 on February 12, 1844, near the Vaal River. It may here be mentioned 

 that happily the hunting trophies of Gordon Gumming were not all 

 destroyed by fire, as has been supposed, after they had been purchased 

 by Barnum ; a few good specimens of skulls and horns were bought for 

 the Gollege of Surgeons in 1866, and decorate one of the staircases in the 

 museum. 



