HY-fflNA. 27J 



their teeth being still found upon the bones. These 

 antique hyaenas do not however exhibit in their 

 remains proportions much surpassing the present, 

 they scarcely exceed the larger races now occupying 

 Africa, and to that quarter of the world, in the 

 present zoological distribution, their centre of ex- 

 istence seems to have been originally confined. The 

 extension of their habitat to the high mountains of 

 Central Asia and to the Bosphorus, may be a result 

 of gradual progress in following the march of armies 

 and caravans : it is a consequence of their ability to 

 sustain heats, droughts, and all the various priva- 

 tions of the wilderness, and being provided with a 

 temperament the most enduring, a hide peculiarly 

 hard, with jaws and teeth of such strength that they 

 break the shin bone of an ox with the utmost facility, 

 and, moreover, acting often in concert, they dread 

 neither the presence of the lion or the tiger, and stand 

 in awe of man only in the day-time. Their structure 

 is equally repulsive : with a large truncated head set 

 on a protruded and stiff neck, with high fore legs, 

 a short body, and low hind quarters, a long bristly 

 mane ranging from the nape to the tail, and that 

 organ itself short and ill-formed, a wallowing gait, 

 great personal uncleanness, and a horrible voice : 

 no beast of the forest offers a more disgusting or 

 frightful aspect ! Nor is this impression diminished 

 by their malignant eyes in the day light, when the 

 pupil assumes an elliptical form above and a rounded 

 below, nor in the dark, when it gleams like burn- 

 ing sulphur : the very ornaments of dark stripes or 



