{ SSS ) 
XXVIII. — Notice relative to the Habits of the 
Hyena of Southern Africa. 
By R. Knox, M. D. M. W. S. 
{Read mJi December 182^.) 
Some of the habits of the hyena of modern times seen! 
to me to afford an objection, which, so far as I know, has 
not yet been offered to Professor Buckland"'s speculations 
as to the mode in which the bones of various animals have 
been introduced into the Cave of Kirkdale, in Yorkshire. 
The Society is aware that Professor Bcjckland ascribes 
their presence to the agency of antediluviain hyenas, to 
whom this cave served as a place of retreat, and whither 
they retired with their prey, in order to feast on it more at 
leisure than they could well do in the open country, and 
by cracking the bones leave nothing they could possibly 
devour. Now, this theory, so far as regards the hyena, 
rests, in my humble opinion, on a misapprehension of the 
habits of that animal. Two varieties of the hyena abound in 
the southern peninsula of Africa, viz. the spotted or tiger- 
Wolf of the colonists, and the striped : these infest the 
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