CARNIVORA. 
97 
THE HYENAS. 
In theLinnean arrangement the hyaenas are treated 
as species of the canine genus ; but they have been 
considered, latterly, as distinct from the dog, and 
formed into a genus by themselves. It may be 
proper, therefore, to compare their characters with 
those of the dog tribe, in order to understand the 
particulars, which have induced this departure from 
so high an authority as that of Linnaeus. 
The teeth, which may be called the principal 
physical evidences of moral character, are purely 
carnivorous in the hyaena ; but in the dog the two 
last cheek-teeth are decidedly molar, and the largest 
in the set is partly carnivorous and partly molar. 
This difference is a clear indication of what has been 
observed respecting the two animals, that the hyaena 
is much more ferocious than the dog. The auxiliary 
cheek-tooth, which has been mentioned and figured 
as proper to the cat, is also met with in the hyaena % 
but not in the dog. The opposite plate shows the 
cheek-teeth of the hyaena, the lobes of which are 
nearly all conical and cutting f, and extremely pow- 
* I observed this in a specimen of the spotted hyaena, lately dead, 
which was kept alive at Exeter "Change nearly fifteen years. 
t The tubercular shape of the anterior and posterior lobes of the 
last upper cheek-tooth, can hardly be said to point at all to a vegetable 
