CARNARIA. 113 
impossible to wrest any thing from between their teeth that they 
have once seized, and, among the Arabs, their name is the symbol 
of obstinacy. It sometimes happens that an anchylosis of the cer- 
vical vertebrz is the consequence of these violent efforts, and this 
has caused it to be said that they have only one single bone in the 
neck. They are nocturnal animals, inhabiting caves ; are extremely 
voracious, and feed chiefly on dead bodies, which they seek for even 
in the grave. A thousand superstitious traditions are connected 
with them. Three species are known, the 
H. vulgaris, Buff. Supp. III, xlvi. (The Striped Hyena.) 
Grey ; blackish or brown stripes crosswise; a mane along the 
whole of the nape of the neck, and black, that stands erect 
when the animal is angry. It is found from India to Abyssinia 
and Senegal. 
Hf. brunnea, Thunb., Acad. of Stockh. 1820, part I, pl. 
ii; H. villosa, Smith. Lin. Trans. XV, pl. xix. (The Brown 
Hyena.) Ofadeep greyish brown; black stripes on the legs 
only. From the south of Africa, where the inhabitants of the 
Cape call it Je Loup du rivage, or the Shore Wolf. 
H. crocuta, Schreb. XCVI, B. (The Spotted Hyena.) 
Grey or reddish, sprinkled with black spots. It is likewise 
from the south of Africa, and is the Tiger Wolf of the Cape. 
There have lately been found in several caverns of France, 
Germany, and England, many bones of a lost species of Hyena 
—H. spelza, which appears to have resided there, and to have 
left the bones of many other animals, which bear evident marks 
of its teeth, and even its own feces. (1) . 
Fests, Lin. 
Of all the Carnaria the Cats are the most completely and power- 
fully armed. Their short and round muzzle, short jaws, and parti- 
cularly their retractile nails, which, being raised perpendicularly, 
and hidden between the toes, when at rest, by the action of elastic 
ligament, lose neither point nor edge, render them most formidable 
animals, the larger species especially. They have two false molars 
- above, and two below: their superior carnivorous tooth has three 
lobes, and a blunted heel on the inner side, the inferior, two pointed 
and trenchant lobes, without any heel: they have but a very small 
tuberculous tooth above, without any thing to correspond to it be- 
- low. The species of this genus are very numerous and various 
with regard to size and colour, though they are all similar with re- 
(1) See Buckland, Religuic: Diluvianz, and Vol. lV of my Oss. Foss. 2d ed. 
Vou. i —P 
ee ge 
