130 A Few Words about Scavengers. [ March, 
flesh eaters. These well-known animals are at present confined 
to the warm regions of Africa and Asia, where they feed upon 
animals which they find dead, and such parts of animals as have 
been left from the feasts of the lion, tiger, and others of the 
nobler kinds of the typical carnivora. The hyenas are about 
five feet in length, and are admirably fitted for their work as 
scavengers ; for they not only devour the soft parts of animals, 
but their large, blunt premolar teeth and the powerful muscles 
(Fie. 17.) CALIFORNIAN VULTURE (CATHARTES CALIFORNIANUS). 
of their jaws enable them to crush and eat the bones of even 
very large animals; and thus these scavengers convert into their 
own living tissues not only parts, but the entire carcasses of ani- 
mals that would otherwise taint the air and cause pestilence and 
death. This habit of the hyenas in preying upon dead animals 
is probably not one recently acquired. The members of this 
family that lived in Post-Tertiary times had essentially the same 
habits as have the hyenas of to-day, judging from their remains 
