498 
DIXAN 
plants. In the evening we all sallied forth on an alarm of an hysena.r 
We saw two, one of w^hich Captain Rudland was lucky enough 
to shoot; the ball passed through the right shoulder and lodged 
in the neck, on which the animal immediately fell. Pearce ran up 
to it, and threw large stones upon its head, and Mr. Carter thrust 
his sword down its throat, which soon dispatched it. 
" On hearing the shot, the people of the village all came out, 
many of them armed with spears ; but we could not prevail, 
on any of them to assist in carrying our game home, as all the 
Abyssinians hold the hysena in utter abhorrence. Our servants, 
however, brought him in great triumph, and hung him up to one 
of the posts before our door, that I might take a drawing of him in 
the morning. 
" August 9. — My first care in the morning was to examine the 
hysena that we had shot the preceding night : it was a male, of the 
spotted species (canis crocuta), and is called by the natives 
Zubbee ; its prevailing colour is a dirty light brown inclining to 
yellow, with black spots ; the extremity of the tail is covered with 
long and coarse black hair, like tliat of a horse*s tail; on the back 
is a ridge of long hair, of which that part between the loins and 
head inclines forwards, while the rest pohits towards the tail, 
shortening by degrees, so that it lies quite smooth on the rump. 
The length of this animal from the nose to the insertion oFthe tail 
was four feet three inches ; its height, from the top of the shoulder 
to the sole of the fore foot, was two feet four inches and a half; 
and from the crown of the rump to the sole of the hind foot was 
two feet one inch and a half. We afterwards saw several consider^ 
gt)ly larger, and of a darker colour, 
