CIVETS, MACHAIRODONTS, AND CATS 167 



Hyaena striata. THE STRIPED HYAENA 



In this and in the brown hyaena the upper molar tooth is 

 more normal in size than in the spotted hyaena, and it has three 

 roots. The lower molar is also proportionately larger, and has 

 a well-developed inner cusp and hind talon. The ears are large 

 and pointed, and there is a mane of long hair on the back from 

 the nape of the neck to the base of the tail. The tail also is very 

 bushy, and the shaggy hair of the body is marked with irregular 

 stripes something like those of the tiger. The present range of 

 the Striped Hyaena is limited to Northern, North-western, and 

 North-eastern Africa (perhaps as far south as Unyamwezi, 

 Kilimanjaro, and Somaliland), Arabia, Syria, parts of Mesopo- 

 tamia, Persia, Palestine, and India as far south as the Deccan 

 (it does not spread westwards as far as Bengal or southwards as 

 far as Ceylon). Anciently, in Pliocene and Pleistocene times, 

 the striped hyaena inhabited Southern France, and possibly Italy ; 

 no doubt also the greater part of Southern and Western Europe. 

 Its range even extended to Eastern England at the end of the 

 Pliocene period. 



Hyaena crocuta. THE SPOTTED 



This is the most specialised of the hyaenas. The upper molar 

 is very small, and sometimes has only one root. It often falls 

 out in the adult animal. The carnassial molar in the lower jaw 

 is also reduced in size, and has no inner cusp. The ears are 

 moderate in size and rounded, and the hair along the back forms 

 no mane, and only a very slight one on the neck and throat. 

 The tail is short, and has not nearly so large a brush as in the 

 striped hyaena. Moreover, the markings are spots distributed 

 pretty widely over the body, and not stripes. 1 The female of 

 the Spotted Hyaena shares that peculiarity already described in the 

 female mole, by which the external male genital organs are exactly 



1 In the equatorial regions west of the Victoria Nyanza a local variety of 

 spotted hyaena is found (a skin of which the author brought home and sent 

 to the British Museum) in which the spots are more distinct and black, and 

 are almost prolonged in places into short stripes. 



