HYANAS. 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 white ants, or termites, which are dug 
out of their hills with its strong claws. 
THE HYANAS. 
Family HV “#NIDE. 
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 hyzna, which, by common consent, is skulking, cowardly, 
SKELETON OF SPOTTED HYAHNA, 
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, hyenas 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 
