THE SPOTTED HYANA 
hide, or grovel on the ground behind its master. 
In Abyssinia, where the towns and villages are 
surrounded by walls, the hyenas do all the sca- 
vaging, and take the place of a sanitary service. 
‘The inhabitants leave holes in the city walls, through 
which the hyznas creep in the dead of night to eat 
up the refuse. The people before nightfall deposit 
all their household filth before their doors, knowing 
full well that before morning the hyznas will have 
cleared it all away. In the Soudan and many other 
parts of Central and Northern Africa, battles are 
frequently fought between rival tribes of natives, 
Arabs, and others, no effort being made to bury the 
dead, which indeed would be so much wasted 
energy, for what remnants of the bodies the hyznas 
might leave are devoured by other carnivorous 
animals or carrion birds. 
Because of the sanitary services performed by 
these animals, they are not interfered with in those 
regions, although they at times destroy numbers 
of sheep; but so well guarded by the shepherd are 
the flocks that a chance for a meal of mutton seldom 
presents itself. 
In the Spotted Hyzna we have a remarkable 
example of an animal possessing prodigious strength, 
powerful jaws, and terrible teeth, of so cowardly a 
nature that, should an animal with few if any powers 
of defence present a bold and threatening front, it 
will slink away in abject fear. This trait of char- 
acter makes it clear that a brain centre which is 
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