156 



THE HYENAS. 



surpassed by those of the Felida;, we should 

 conjecture that the hya;na must be a ferocious 

 beast of prey dangerous even to man. But 

 that is not the case. The spotted hya;na will 

 at most seize on little children when awake, 

 though it may perhaps attack adult persons 

 found sleeping outside of the houses or the 

 tents. But the flocks of sheep and goats 



suffer greatly from the ravages of hyaenas, 

 when they are not protected by courageous 

 and watchful dogs. 



The natives do not hunt the hysena, but 

 merely kill it when they can. In their 

 opinion the hyaena is so filthy an animal that 

 it would only pollute the weapon with which 

 it was wounded. It is caught in snares, pits, 





Fig 71 — The Spotted H\aena {Hyaaia crotuta]. 



or other sorts of traps. Sometimes it is 

 poisoned, sometimes caught alive. Only the 

 European colonists and travellers honour it 

 with rifle or musket shots. In North Africa 

 the Arabs, provided only with a piece of 

 carpet, boldly enter the cave of a hyaena, 

 which allows itself to be driven back hissing 

 like a cat and snarling. When the animal 

 has thus been forced back to the inmost 

 recess of the cave the intruder throws the 

 carpet over its head, and then, regardless of 

 the fury with which it attempts to bite and 

 scratch, falls upon the animal and binds the 

 carpet firmly round its head, ties its legs with 

 a cord and drags it into the camp, where the 



women and children stone the animal to 

 death. 



In some secure retreat the female hya;na 

 brings forth at a birth from three to seven 

 blind and shapeless cubs, which she watches 

 over tenderly, and e\-en defends with courage 

 until they can shift for themselves. 



They are easily tamed and trained when 

 young. The captive hyaenas are obedient, 

 but never get so sincerely aittached to their 

 masters as the large felines sometimes do. 

 Their stench, their disagreeable disposition, 

 and their hideousness cause these efforts at 

 taming them to be confined to menageries. 



The Striped Hyaena {^Hycena striata), — of 



