THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
daylight. It is, too, much less gregarious than its larger relative, living 
and hunting either alone or in pairs. Though very timid and cowardly in 
disposition, it will sometimes muster up sufficient courage to attack a 
native sheep-fold. If disturbed in its lair in the daytime in fairly open 
country, it can be ridden down, but not without considerable difficulty, 
as it can run at considerable speed, and possesses great powers of 
endurance. 
The brown hyena ( Hycena brunnea) is in size intermediate between the 
spotted and striped species, though its long coat of coarse, dark brown 
hair and bushy tail make it appear a larger animal than it really is. In 
habits and disposition it more nearly resembles the striped than the 
spotted hyena, being far less bold and destructive to stock than the latter 
species. 
The brown hyena was first met with by the early Dutch settlers at the 
Cape in the middle of the seventeenth century, and was named by them 
“ strand-wolf ” (shore-wolf), from its habit of frequenting the seashore 
to prey on the remains of any whales, porpoises, or fish which had been 
cast upon the beach. The range of this species of hyena seems to be almost 
entirely confined to South-West Africa, though it is said to have been met 
with in the neighbourhood of Kilimanjaro, in German East Africa. 
Personally, I have only twice met with brown hyenas in the flesh — once 
in the country between Secheli’s Station (Molipololi) and Khama’s old 
town of Bamangwato, and once on the lower course of the Macloutsi 
River, in the valley of the Limpopo. In both cases there were a pair of 
these animals together, feeding on the remains of antelopes I had shot 
the previous day. Brown hyenas must, however, be fairly common in 
parts of Bechuanaland, as whenever I passed through Molipololi between 
1872 and 1888, I always noticed a number of their skins spread as mats 
on the floor of Secheli’s house. Secheli was the late paramount chief of the 
Bakwena tribe, and father of Sebele, the present chief. Throughout all the 
territories comprised within Southern and Northern Rhodesia, the brown 
hyena is, to the best of my belief, entirely unknown, which makes the 
statement that it has been met with in German East Africa somewhat 
remarkable. 
The African hunting dog (Lycaon pictus) is an inhabitant of the greater 
part of the African continent wherever game is plentiful, though it is not 
found either in the equatorial forest region or in waterless or mountainous 
districts. This species differs very much in appearance both from the wolf 
222 
