684 NATURAL HISTORY. 



drowns every other noise. The coyote is a cowardly but cunning beast, 

 ranging from the plains to the Pacific, and a familiar element of every 

 picture of life in all that region. 



Besides the marsupials already mentioned there was but one terrestrial 

 mammal in the great Australian continent at the time of its discovery by 

 man. This was the dingo, a dog which ran wild through all the island, 

 leading a predaceous life, and which was occasionally reduced to a state of 

 semi-domestication by the natives of the country. Whether it was indig- 

 enous, or was introduced from some other region, is a problem as yet 

 unsolved, although if the latter supposition be the true one, the date of 

 its introduction must have been exceedingly remote, for the remains of 

 the dingo are found fossil in strata of quaternary age. 



Of the domestic dog we have but little to say. The subject really 

 demands a volume, but our space will only admit a reference to the most 

 peculiar form, — the Japanese pug. Long domestication has resulted in 

 great degradation of structure ; and an old dog, instead of the forty-two 

 teeth typical of other dogs, may have these reduced to sixteen. Were the 

 dog found wild, no naturalist would hesitate to place it in a distinct genus, 

 if not in a distinct family, from the other dogs. 



Last of the terrestrial carnivores comes the group of cats, civets, and 

 hyenas, the latter of which are the most dog-like, and hence need consid- 

 eration first. Hyenas are far from pleasing animals. They are very 

 strong, and furnished with teeth adapted to crush the hardest bones. They 

 will break the shin-bone of an ox with their jaws, while they are able to 

 carry off a weight of seventy or a hundred pounds. They are as voracious 

 as is possible, and will gorge themselves whenever opportunity offers, 

 rivalling the glutton in this respect. Yet, strong as they are, they are 

 cowardly, and take night for their prowl ings ; but if brought to bay, they 

 make formidable antagonists. Hyenas play a good part in the hotter por- 

 tions of Africa and western Asia ; for they are scavengers, and they rid the 

 country of the carcasses of game, which would otherwise breed pestilence. 

 But this habit has one drawback; for they will desecrate cemeteries, dig- 

 ging the corpses from a depth of five or six feet. In the day-time they 

 live in holes in the rocks, caverns, and the like. It is hardly necessary to 

 refute the statement that the hyenas are untamable, for it has often been 

 shown to be false. 



The civet cats are mostly Asiatic, one species occurring in eastern 

 Africa. All are remarkable from their secretion of odorous substances, 

 and civet is one of the most highly prized perfumes of the east, though so 

 rank as to be disagreeable to the senses of Europeans. Civet is a secretion 

 from certain glands in the genital and anal region, which collects in a 



