Some Beasts of Reproach. 91 



ghostly. And as if to keep up this imposture of being 

 phantom-beasts, they move more stealthily and silently 

 than even the wolf itself, and are, in fact, perpetually mis- 

 taken by those who see them (especially on nights when 

 clouds are driving across the moon) for shadows on the 

 ground. They can be heard breathing before they can be 

 seen, and have been observed sniffing at a sleeping watch- 

 dog. 



It is not, therefore, surprising that the poets should con- 

 sider hyaenas fair subjects for imaginative writing. So we 

 find it meeting " the vulture and the snake, in horrid truce 

 to eat the dead " — revelling in scenes of carnage from which 

 "the very vultures turn away," — "smiling" over a "rank 

 corse" (Le)Hien) — "over his loathed meal, laughing in 

 agony, raving " (Shelley) — " shedding tears and biting the 

 while she's howling " (Barry Cornwall) — " tearing and 

 grinning, howling, screeching, swearing, and with hyaena- 

 laughter died despairing " (Byron). But, inasmuch as it is 

 essential for complete horror that the hyaena shall be the 

 direct foe of man, it is described as " bursting " upon man, 

 and man as " flying the hyaena's famished howl." 



" And oh ! to see the unburied heaps 

 On which the lonely moonlight sleeps ; * 



The very vultures turn away, 

 And sicken at so foul a prey ! 

 Only the fiercer hyaena stalks 

 Throughout the city's desolate walks 

 At midnight, and his carnage plies. 

 "NVoe to the half-dead wretch who meets 

 The glaring of those large blue eyes 

 Amid the darkness of the streets." — Moore. 



In metaphor the hyaena is unexpectedly infrequent. 

 But women in general are called hyaenas. In Otway — 



" 'Tis thus the false hyaena makes her moan 

 To draw the pitying traveller to her den. 

 Your sex are so ! " 



