302 HISTORY OF QUADRUPEDS. 



These animals were formerly so bold as to molest 

 the Hottentots in their huts, and sometimes carry 

 off their children; but since the introduction of fire- 

 arms, these and other wild beasts keep at a greater 

 distance from the habitations of mankind. It is a 

 fact, however, that numbers of them attend almost 

 every night about the shambles at the Cape, where 

 they meet with bones, skin, and other offals, which 

 are left there by the inhabitants, who suffer these 

 animals to come unmolested, and carry off their 

 refuse; and it is somewhat remarkable that they 

 have seldom been known to do any mischief there, 

 though fed in the very heart of the town. 



The howlings of the Hyena are dreadful beyond 

 all conception, and spread a general alarm: they 

 are almost incessant, and seem to be the natural 

 consequence of its craving appetite. Perhaps it 

 may not be going too far to say, that Nature has 

 kindly impressed this involuntary disposition to 

 yelling upon this animal, that every living creature 

 may be upon its guard, and secure itself from the 

 attacks of so cruel an enemy. 



The general colour is a reddish brown, marked 

 with roundish dark spots; the hind legs, in some, 

 with transverse black bars, in others with spots; 

 its head is large and flat; above each eye, as Avell 

 as on the lips, it has whiskers; a short shagged 

 kind of mane runs along from the middle of the 

 back to its head, the hair pointing forward; its ears 

 are short and rounded; the hair on its face and the 

 upper part of its head is short; the skin on its brow 

 is wrinkled. 



Our figure was drawn from a male Hyena ex- 

 hibited in Newcastle in the spring and summer of 

 1799. 



