HVENIDE 543 
specialised form. The Spotted Hyena isa larger and bolder animal 
than the Striped species, hunting in packs, and uttering very 
frequently its unearthly cry. The coloration consists of dark brown 
spots on a yellowish ground. It was formerly very common at the 
Cape. Remains of a large race of this species are exceedingly common 
in the cavern-deposits of Europe, where they were first described under 
the name of Hyena spelea ; teeth have also been met with in the 
Norfolk Forest-bed, and in cavern-deposits in Madras—the latter 
locality being exceedingly interesting from a distributional point of 
view. 
In addition to the remains of existing species, to which refer- 
Fia. 247.—The Spotted Hyzna (Hycna crocuta). 
ence has been already made, there were numerous extinct forms of 
Hyena in the upper Tertiaries of Europe, from the horizon of the 
Lower Pliocene Pikermi beds of Greece upwards. In the Crocutine 
group Z. colvini of the Pliocene of India (Fig. 248), and H. robusta of 
that of Italy, appear to have been ancestral forms allied to . crocuta ; 
the former being distinguished by the loss of the first upper pre- 
molar. H. eximia, of the Pikermi beds, is a more generalised form, 
in which the first lower premolar (lost in existing forms) is retained. 
In the typical group, H. arvernensis and H. perrieri, of the Upper 
Pliocene of the Continent, approximate to H. brunnea, although H. 
perriert makes a farther step towards the Crocutine group by the 
loss of the inner cusp in the lower carnassial. The extinct Hyenic- 
a series of papers by Morrison Watson in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 
for 1877, 1878, 1879, and 1881, in which references to previous authors on the 
subject will be found. 
