CHARACTERS CF THE 



SKULL OF HYAENA. 



Dog, and even took him into a drawing-room full of ladies, by whom, after they had recovered their 

 fright at seeing a real wild beast enter the room, he allowed himself to be patted and caressed. 

 The same author states that a Cheetah once 

 lived at large in an English seaport, and was 

 the greatest possible favourite with the sailors 

 and other inhabitants. 



THE HYAENA FAMILY* 



This group contains the single genus 



Ilycena, one species of which, the Striped 



Hyaena (K. striata), inhabits North-east Asia 



and Northern Africa ; the others (//. crocuta 



and H. brunnea) inhabiting South Africa. 



Externally, the Hyaenas have something 



the appearance of extremely ugly and un- 

 attractive-looking Dogs. They are somewhat 



larger than a Shepherd's Dog, and are covered 



with coarse bristly hair, short over the 



greater part of the body, but produced into a 



sort of mane along the ridge of the neck. 



The mode of progression is entirely digiti- 



grade, the legs having much the same pro- 

 portion as in an average Dog, except for the 



fact that the hind legs are shorter than the 



fore legs, so that the body slopes from the withers to the haunches. The claws resemble those of the 



Dog in that they cannot be retracted in sheaths of skin : here, therefore, we have a great and marked 



difference from all the Cat tribe. 



The tail is bushy, the snout long, but blunt, 

 giving the beast a snub-nosed appearance and a 

 horridly vulgar expression, quite different to that 

 of most of his relatives. The long-nosedness is 

 partly, however, only a matter of external appear- 

 ance, for the skull, although nothing like as short 

 as a Cat's, is yet very far from being as long as that 

 of a Dog or a Civet, and it is still more Cat-like in 

 the immense width of the cheek-arches, and the 

 great development of bony ridges fcr the attachment 

 of muscles. The great longitudinal ridge on the 



top of the skull is indeed far larger than in even the Lion or Tiger, and forms a great shelving crest, 



like that of an old-fashioned helmet. As we have already mentioned, this ridge is for the attachment 



of the great cheek, muscles which close the 



jaw muscles which, in the Hyaena, are of 



such power, that the animal's favourite way 



of attacking Dogs is to bite their legs off, 



and one of its choicest titbits is the marrow 



of bones, which can only be obtained by 



cracking the bone across, as we should crack 



a nut. Any one who has examined a Horse's 



or an Antelope's thigh-bone will have some 



notion of the power of jaws capable of smash- LOWEII JAW or HYJEXA. 



ing such a tough morsel. 



But something more is required than strong muscles for work such as this ; and the Hyaena is 



* Hycenidce. 



TEETH OF HY.EXA. 

 a, First lower molar. 6, Last upper premolar. 



