96 THE TOWER MENAGERIE. 
distinct species, and affixed to it the scientific name which 
we have adopted without hesitation for these animals, 
with the most striking peculiarities of which his descrip- 
tion coincides in every essential particular. 
Their habits in a state of nature are, in all probability, 
perfectly similar to those which characterize their imme- 
diate neighbours, from which, in captivity, they differ 
in no remarkable degree. Like the common kind, they 
are exceedingly voracious, tearing their meat and swal- 
lowing it in large gobbets, and afterwards gnawing the 
bones (for which they frequently quarrel) with truly 
wolvish avidity. Although they have been so long con- 
fined, they retain their original ferocity undiminished : 
a circumstance, it may be mentioned by the way, which 
has prevented us from giving their measurement. Jude- 
ing, however, from the eye, we may confidently venture 
to assert that their size, especially that of the male, is 
considerably superior to that of the specimen described 
by Mr. Say, which measured about four feet and a quarter 
from the tip of the nose to the origin of the tail. 
