34 
NATURE NOTES. 
In colour it is of a dirty ashey grey, with black stripes on the 
legs and part of the body, and often with a black patch under 
the neck. Its ears are long and pricked up, the eyes project 
somewhat, and the tail is short and bushy. It is provided with 
four toes on each foot, with strong claws, and incapable of being 
drawn back into a sheath as in the case of the Felidae. Though 
sturdy in its neck, chest, and fore-legs, it is comparatively feeble 
in its hind quarters, giving to it when in movement a reeling sort 
of a gait, and when starting off to run, one instinctively forms 
the idea that it is lame ; but this soon passes off, for it can be 
very swift, and distance any rider on going down a hill, but when 
it has to ascend a steep hill a fleet runner can then readily 
catch it up. 
Though a great sneak and a coward, yet with its sulky hang- 
dog look, and moving as it does with its head near the ground, 
it is by no means an agreeable customer to meet at night with- 
out a good stout stick in one’s hand ; and yet if taken young it 
can be readily domesticated, and follow its master like a dog, 
and in its tamed state it seems to lose most of the offensive 
odour which hangs about it when wild. 
Upon the Madras side we called it a “ dammulgundi” ; 
while by some natives it is known by the Hindustani name of 
“ bhalo-kola,” or bear jackal. It is often called, too, in Central 
India a “ lukra bugha.” In northern India the term “ chur- 
ruck ” is used for it, and in the Punjaub it is known as the 
“throtta,” the literal meaning of which is “ broken-backed.” 
Some naturalists were once of opinion that the hyaena ap- 
proximated very nearly to the civets, having the rough tongue 
in common, and being possessed, as it was then thought, of a 
glandular pouch similar to the civets. This belief has been 
generally given up, and Mr. John Barlow, who has both hunted 
and killed many hyaenas in the Punjaub, assures me that they 
possess no such perineal glands. It is well known that from 
this sac in the civets, as also from the musk deer, perfumers 
obtain a substance which, when greatly diluted, supplies a some- 
what pleasant scent, which is much sought after by the Javanese 
and Malays, and indeed is not despised by some people in 
Europe. 
For its haunts the striped hyaena prefers the hilly and rocky 
districts, where there are natural caverns suitable as dens, and 
when once an animal has taken up its abode for some time in 
one of these fissures in the rocks, the outside is covered with the 
fragments of animals and bones of every description. It is so 
marked a feature that, as Mr. Barlow says, it may well be termed 
the most “ossivorous” of quadrupeds. 
To most of the natives of India the hymna is an object of 
great hatred and aversion. There is only one tribe, I believe, 
who will neither hunt nor kill the animal, and this tribe takes its 
name of Lakra ” from the Hindustani word for a hyaena 
(“ lakra bagha ”). According to Mr. W. Crooke, in his excellent 
