THE HUNTING-DOG. 



JUST as the Aard wolf appears to form the link between the civets and the hyenas, 

 being with some difficulty referred to either group of animals, so the Hunting-Dog 

 seems to be the connecting link between the dogs and the hyenas. Its positions, how- 

 ever, in the scale of animated nature is so very obscure that it has been placed by some 

 zoologists among the dogs and by others among the hyenas. As, however, the leading 

 characteristic of its formation appears to tend rather towards the canine than the 

 hyenine type, the Hunting-Dog has been provisionally placed at the end of the dogs 

 rather than at the end of the hyenas. 



In its general aspect there is much of the hyenine character, and the creature has 

 often been mistaken for a hyena, and described under that name. There is, however, 

 less of the hyenine type than is seen in the Aard wolf, for the peculiar ridge of hair that 

 decorates the neck of the hyena is absent in the Hunting-Dog, and the hindei 

 quarters are not marked by that strange sloping form which is so characteristic of the 



^l/ 1 



Sb 



-.'M 



&* 



HUNTING-DOa. Lyedoa veaatlcus. 



hyena and the Aard wolf itself. The teeth are almost precisely like those of the dogs, 

 with the exception of a slight difference in the false molars, and therefore are quite dis- 

 tinct from those of the hyenas. But the feet are only furnished with four toes instead 

 of five, which is a characteristic of the hyenas, and not of the dogs. Several other 

 remarkable points of structure are found in this curious animal, some of them tending to 

 give it a position among the dogs, and others appearing to refer it to the hyenas. 



The general color of the Hunting-Dog is a reddish or yellowish brown, marked at 

 wide intervals with large patches of black and white. The nose and muzzle are black, 

 and the central line of the head is marked with a well-defined black stripe, which reaches 

 to the back of the head. The ears are extremely large, and are covered on both their 

 faces with rather short black hairs. From their inside edge rises a large tuft of long 

 white hair, which spreads over and nearly fills the cavity of the ear. The tail is covered 



