543 



specialised form. The Spotted Hysena is a larger and bolder animal 

 than the Striped species, hunting in packs, and uttering very 

 frequently its unearthly cry. The coloration consists of dark brown 

 spots on a yellowish ground. It was formerly very common at the 

 Cape. Eemains of a large race of this species are exceedingly common 

 in the cavern-deposits of Europe, where they were first described under 

 the name of Hycena spelcea ; teeth have also been met with in the 

 Norfolk Forest-bed, and in cavern-deposits in Madras the latter 

 locality being exceedingly interesting from a distributional point of 

 view. 



In addition to the remains of existing species, to which refer- 



FIG. 247. The Spotted Hyaena (Hyaena crocuta). 



ence has been already made, there were numerous extinct forms of 

 Hycena in the upper Tertiaries of Europe, from the horizon of the 

 Lower Pliocene Pikermi beds of Greece upwards. In the Crocutine 

 group H. colvini of the Pliocene of India (Fig. 248), and H. robusta of 

 that of Italy, appear to have been ancestral forms allied to H. crocuta; 

 the former being distinguished by the loss of the first upper pre- 

 molar. H. eximia, of the Pikermi beds, is a more generalised form, 

 in which the first lower premolar (lost in existing forms) is retained. 

 In the typical group, H. arvernensis and H. perrieri, of the Upper 

 Pliocene of the Continent, approximate to H. brunnea; although H. 

 peirieri makes a farther step towards the Crocutine group by the 

 loss of the inner cusp in the lower carnassial. The extinct Hycenic- 



a series of papers by Morrison Watson in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 

 for 1877, 1878, 1879, and 1881, in which references to previous authors on the 

 subject will be found. 



