130 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
conical teeth, surrounded at the base of the crown by a belt of 
enamel, are eminently adapted for crunching bones, for which it 
has a predilection. It is a sneaking and cowardly animal, and on 
any show of resistance by its intended victim will hesitate and 
even retire. Remains of the Spotted Hyena have been found in 
upwards of thirty different caverns in England, and generally in 
such abundance, as compared with other bones, as to show that it 
was plentifully distributed over the low lands and forests of ancient 
Britain. The reason for its absence from Ireland, as before noticed, 
is not clear; unless, perhaps, there was no direct highway between 
the two islands, as there was between England and the European 
continent. Moreover, it may be that the country was not suffi- 
ciently inviling, although large game, such as the Reindeer and 
the so-called Irish Elk, abounded. At all events, not a trace of 
the Hyzna has as yet been found in Ireland, and there are no 
authentic accounts of any such remains from Scotland, which, as 
far as the northern parts were concerned, was then doubtless more 
or less clad in snow and ice. Again, the habits of the Spotted 
Hyena, as now known, show that it is not a beast of the moun- 
tains, but of the plains. 
All the quadrupeds which have lingered on in Great Britain to 
within historical times were evidently sooner exterminated in 
England than elsewhere. THE Wo.r furnishes an instance. It 
Was quite a scourge in various parts of Ireland and Scotland during 
the seventeenth century, especially in the former country, where a 
breed of wolf dogs was carefully preserved.* This race of dogs is 
now also extinct. It resembled the Scotch Deerhound, but the 
skull was more wolf-like, so that there is now some difficulty in 
distinguishing the one from the other. Traces of old circular 
entrenchments, into which cattle, sheep, and goats were driven for 
protection from wolves, are still met with in abundance in many 
parts of Ireland, especially in the southern counties. Unlike other 
extinct British beasts, the Wolf apparently has not deteriorated in 
size, for the fossil bones which have been discovered are not 
larger, nor in any way to be distinguished from those of European 
Wolves of the present day. 
* The last Wolf killed in Ireland was in county Kerry, in a.p. 1710. It was 
common in Connaught, according to O'Flaherty, in 1700. In 1641 and 1652 Wolves 
were very troublesome, and a council order by Cromwell, dated at Kilkenny, pro- 
hibits the exportation of wolf dogs.—A. L. A. 
7 
