HYAENAS. 



481 



According to the accounts of all travellers through the Cape districts, it 

 appears to be a comparatively rare animal, although this apparent rarity is 

 doubtless in some degree due to its purely nocturnal habits. As its name implies, 

 it lives in burrows, which are made by itself ; and, according to the account of the 

 traveller De Lalande, several individuals may inhabit one and the same burrow, 

 which has generally at least two or three exits. Like all burrowing animals, it is 

 of a timid and cowardly disposition, and, when driven from its burrow, makes off 

 at a rapid pace. The aborted condition of the teeth would alone suffice to indicate 

 that it subsisted on a diet different from that of ordinary Carnivores ; and that 

 such is really the case has been proved by observations made upon both wild 

 and captive specimens. In the wild state it appears that its chief food consists 

 partly of carrion, and partly of the so-called \vhite ants, or termites, which are dug 

 out of their hills with its strong claws. 



THE HYENAS. 

 Family HYJENIDJE. 



In our notice of the lion, it was mentioned that there was considerable 

 diversity of opinion as to his character and bearing; but no such uncertainty 

 exists with regard to the hysena, which, by common consent, is skulking, cowardly, 



SKELETON OF SPOTTED HY^NA. 



treacherous, and cruel ; and, so far as we are aware, no one has ever had a good 

 word to say for him. 



Like all the animals described in the present chapter, hyaenas are confined to 

 the warmer parts of the Old World ; but unlike the civets, they are unknown at 

 the present day in Europe and in the countries lying to the eastward of the Bay 

 of Bengal; although, in past epochs, they were spread over the greater part of 



VOL. i. 31 



