AAKD- WOLF— HYAENAS 



7i 



thickets, but more generally resort to a hole, using as a rule burrows made by ant- 

 bears, although occasionally excavating earths for themselves. Their food appears 

 to consist chiefly of insects, especially white ants, but they are reported to eat 

 carrion, and to kill kids and lambs for the sake of the milk in their stomachs. 

 The feeble character of their teeth will not permit them to attack larger animals. 

 As previously mentioned, the striped hyaena is represented in 

 Hyanas. Eagfc Africa by a local race (Hycena striata schilling si). Nearly 

 allied is the brown hyaena, or strand-wolf {H. brunnea), a species confined to the 



AARD-WOLF. 



south-west, but now very rare in Cape Colon)', and unknown in Natal. This 

 species is distinguished by the mantle of long, coarse hair hanging down from the 

 sides of the neck and back, the short, bushy tail, the long, pointed ears, and the 

 general brown colour, marked on the legs with light brown or whitish spots, the 

 face beine <rreyish brown, and the crown of the head black with whitish or reddish 

 brown flecks. A very distinct type is the spotted hyaena (H. crocuta), which 

 ranges across the continent from Senegambia to Somaliland and southwards to 

 Cape Colony, where it was formerly common even in Cape Town itself. Measuring 

 about 54 inches to the root of the tail, the spotted hyaena is one of the most ugly 

 and repulsive-looking of all Carnivora. It is also larger than the other hyaenas, 



