ADVENTURES WITH HYENAS. 



147 



quietly walked into a cottage, where he was retaken without offer, 

 ing any resistance. And yet the rage of this animal was occa- 

 sionally very great when strangers approached it. The fact is, 

 that the hyaena is exceedingly impatient of confinement ; and feels 

 a constant irritation at the constraint which, in the den of a mena- 

 gerie, is put upon his natural habits. An individual at Exeter 

 Change, some years ago, was so tame, as to be allowed to walk about 

 the exhibition-room. He was afterwards sold to a person, who 

 permitted him to go out with him into the fields, led by a string. 

 After these indulgences, he became the property of a travelling 

 showman, who kept him constantly in a cage. From that time 

 his ferocity became quite alarming ; he would allow no strange* 

 to approach him ; and he gradually pined away and died. Thii 

 is one, out of the many examples, of the miseries which we inflict 

 upon animals, through an ignorance of their natural habits. 



