HYAENA. . 301 



abandoned his primitive food of roots, if indeed it 

 ever was such; and in that barbarous and ill-go- 

 verned country he finds more frequent opportu- 

 nities than perhaps any where else in the world 

 to indulge his appetite for flesh. In Barbary, 

 Mr. Bruce assures us he has seen the Moors, in 

 the day-time, take this animal by the ears, and 

 pull him along, without his offering any other 

 resistance than that of drawing back; and the 

 hunters, when his cave is large enough to give 

 them admittance, will take a torch in their hand, 

 and go strait to him; and pretending to fas- 

 cinate him by a senseless jargon of words which 

 they repeat, they throw a blanket over him, and 

 hawl him out. Mr. Bruce locked up a goat, a 

 kid, and a lamb, with a Barbary Hyaena all day, 

 when he was fasting, and found them in the even- 

 ing alive and unhurt; but repeating an experi- 

 ment of this kind one night, he ate up a young 

 ass, a goat, and a fox, all before morning, so as 

 to leave nothing but some small fragments of the 

 ass's bones. In Barbary, therefore, he has no 

 courage by day, but flies from man, and hides 

 himself from him; while in Abyssinia he is so 

 bold as to prowl about in open day, and to attack 

 with savage fury such animals as chance may of- 

 fer to his view. 



" I do not think (says Mr. Bruce) there is any 

 one that hath hitherto written of this animal who 

 ever saw the thousandth part of them that I have. 

 They were a plague in Abyssinia in every situa- 

 tion, both in the city and in the field, and, I 

 think, surpassed the sheep in number. Gondar 



