THE BROWX HY^EXA. 4(5.5 



directly to return, which I immediately did, when I perceived 

 large blue eyes glaring at me in the dark. I called upon my 

 servant for a light, and there was a hyaena standing nigh the 

 head of the bed, with two or three large bunches of candles in 

 his mouth. To have fired at him, I was in danger of breaking 

 my quadrant or other furniture ; and he seemed, by keeping 

 the candles steadily in his mouth, to wish for no other prey at 

 that time. As his mouth was fall, and he had no claws to tear 

 with, I was not afraid of him, but with a pike struck him as 

 near the heart as I could judge. It was not till then he showed 

 any sign of fierceness, but upon feeling his wound he let drop 

 the candles and endeavoured to run up the shaft of the spear to 

 arrive at me, so that in self-defence I was obliged to draw a 

 pistol from my girdle and shoot him, and nearly at the same 

 time my servant cleft his skull with a battle-axe.' 



The broivn hyaena, which is found in South Africa, from the 

 Cape to Mozambique and Senegambia, and has a more shaggy 

 fur than the preceding species, has very different habits. He 

 is particularly fond of the Crustacea which the ebbing flood 

 leaves behind upon the beach, or which the storm casts ashore 

 in great quantities, and exclusively inhabits the coasts, where 

 he is known under the name of the sea-shore wolf. His traces 

 are everywhere to be met with on the strand, and night after 

 night he prowls along the margin of the water, carefully ex- 

 amining the refuse of the retreating ocean. 



II H 



