180 THE CAPE HYENA. 



"This animal is very common in South Africa, and being cittrning, and rarely venturing 

 out by day, is likely to be longer a denizen of the inhabited districts than many other less 

 formidable creatures. The height at the shoulder is about two feet six inches, and falls 

 towards the rump ; extreme length, about five feet ten inches. The head is short and very 

 broad ; muzzle and nose black ; general color, brown, irregularly blotched with circular black 

 spots. The tail sixteen inches ; hairs on the back of the neck and withers long, forming a 

 reversed mane. 



"The proper duty of this creature appears to be that of scavenger, and is, with regard to 

 the beasts, what the vulture is to the birds ; but owing to its great appetite, and naturally 

 voracious disposition, it does not appear contented with merely the carrion which it might 

 procure, but employs its strength and speed in destroying the flocks and herds of the colonists, 

 or in killing such antelopes as it is enabled to capture. 



" If this animal possessed courage in proportion to its strength it would be a very formi- 

 dable opponent to man, and, as it hunts frequently in packs, might test the skill and boldness 

 of the hunter ; but, fortunately, its principal characteristic is cowardice. 



"Owing to the custom prevalent amongst many of the South African tribes of exposing 

 their dead to be devoured by beasts of prey, the Hyena has acquired the taste for human flesh, 

 and therefore cases are on record of the huts of Kaffirs having been entered by it, and the 

 children carried off and devoured. Most ably does the Hyena perform his functions in the 

 economy of nature. Whilst the lion selects the choice parts of a slain animal, and the vulture 

 those which he cannot eat, the Hyena comes and finishes hide, bones, and other remnants 

 which have been too tough for the digestion of the others. 



"It appears to be a law of nature that those animals which take the shortest time to fill 

 their stomachs can go the longest time without eating. For example, the horse and the ox 

 will take from half an hour to one hour and a half to feed, and they will both suffer if they 

 are kept more than a day without food. The wolf and the dog can make a very satisfactory 

 meal in about two minutes, and either can remain two or three days without suffering much 

 for want of a meal. We may even remark that this instinctive mode of eating food is 

 prevalent among human beings. 



"The rough ploughboy, whose meals are limited in number to one or two daily, and are 

 composed of coarse bread and fat bacon, swallows in a few minutes these articles of food in 

 great morsels which he can hardly force into his mouth, and which he scarcely takes the 

 trouble to masticate. The food which is thus taken into the system will repel the feeling of 

 faintness consequent on an empty stomach much more than if it were leisurely eaten and 

 properly subjected to the action of the teeth. This result is only natural, for the better food 

 is masticated, the sooner is it digested. 



' ' The Hyena in the Zoological Gardens appears well acquainted with this fact, for on one 

 occasion, being anxious to see how easily he crushed a huge bone of beef, I took my station in 

 front of his cage, just before feeding time. After the usual laugh had been extracted from crowd 

 and Hyena, a leg of beef was forced under the bars, and was seized by the hysterical scavenger. 

 A few strips of flesh were torn off and swallowed, and then there remained about nine inches 

 of bone and sinew ; instead of crushing these into little pieces, and then swallowing it, as I 

 expected, the wise animal just turned the bone 'head on,' took it in his jaws, made a face, con- 

 torted his body, and that solid mass was deposited in the yawning sarcophagus. The crowd 

 laughed and dispersed, but did not remark what experience had probably taught this prisoner, 

 viz., that when he swallowed the bone whole he was not so famished by the next day's dinner- 

 hour as when he ground it up into small pieces. This Hyena, having but little variety of 

 occupation for its mind, had probably devoted much patient thought to the adjustment of 

 this fact. 



The Hyena usually lives in holes, or amongst rocks, in retired localities, and when the sun 

 has set he comes forth and searches for food. He then utters a long melancholy howl, which 

 finishes with a sort of bark, and occasionally that fiend-like laugh which, when heard in the 

 desert, amid scenes of the wildest description, calls up in the imagination of the solitary 

 traveller the forms of some spectral ghouls searching for their unnatural feast. 



