THE SCAVENGER HYENA 



Kermit Rides Down a Hyena — Habits of this Carrion-eating Beast — The Scavengers of the 

 Velt and the Steppe. 



The hyenas roam over the length and breadth of Africa, south of the Sa- 

 hara, following the other animals as they change their habitat according to 

 the seasons, and Colonel Roosevelt often heard them howling around his camp 

 at night, for the hyena is a nocturnal beast. In the dark night its deep bass 

 was heard and then it would laugh aloud, in a weird, shrill, shrieking treble. 

 This laugh, seldom uttered, but making one's heart shudder, is not a thing 

 to forget ; on feverish nights it plagues one still in memory. No one need 

 jest about it who has not himself heard it. He who has heard it understands 

 how the Arabs take the hyenas to be wicked men living under a spell. 



HEADS OF HYENAS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS. 



The hyenas are the scavengers of the vast African plains ; as a rule they do 

 away with the carcasses of the big mammals, and also with the dead human 

 bodies, before decay starts. A hunter once saw five hyenas running out of 



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