vi THE HOWL OF THE HYAENA 115 



surface. Presently I heard a troop of lions roaring 

 in the distance, and as I thought they might be 

 coming to drink at the pool of water close to which 

 I was lying all by myself and without any kind of 

 shelter, I stood up and shouted to my Kafirs to 

 come and cut up the rhinoceros, and bring some 

 dry wood with them so that we could make a fire 

 near the carcase. 



As my hungry boys came running up, the hyaenas 

 hastily retired ; but after we had opened the carcase 

 of the rhinoceros and cut out the heart and liver 

 and some of the choicest pieces of meat and carried 

 them to our camp, they returned and feasted on 

 what was left to their heart's content. The noise 

 they made during the remainder of the night, 

 howling, laughing, and cackling, was in strange 

 contrast to their silence when they first came to the 

 carcase, but found themselves unable to get at the 

 meat, owing to the thickness of the hide by which 

 it was covered. The lions which I had heard 

 roaring in the distance did not come to drink at 

 the pool near which we were encamped. They 

 were probably on their way to a much larger pool 

 of water some miles to the eastward. 



Spotted hyaenas are very noisy animals, and their 

 eerie, mournful howling is the commonest sound to 

 break the silence of an African night. 



The ordinary howl of the spotted hyaena 

 commences with a long-drawn-out, mournful moan, 

 rising in cadence till it ends in a shriek, altogether 

 one of the weirdest sounds in nature. It is only 

 rarely that one hears hyaenas laugh in the wilds of 

 Africa, as these animals can be made to do in the 

 Zoological Gardens by tantalising them with a 

 piece of meat held just beyond their reach outside 

 the bars of their cage. But when a lot of hyaenas 

 have gathered together round the carcase of a large 

 animal, such as an elephant or a rhinoceros, and are 



