108 
CARNIVORA. 
be forgotten, also, that the domestic animals, as 
well as now and then an unprotected child, are 
quite as acceptable to a hungry hyaena as the neg- 
lected offals of the butchers* shambles. They are 
not so nicely discriminating for the benefit of the 
lords of the creation j and if the hyaena were dis- 
posed, like the lion in La Fontaine’s fable, to confess 
its sins, it might say : 
Pour moi, satisfaisant mes appetits gloutons^ 
J’ai devore force moutons. 
Que m’ avoient ils fait ? nulle offense : 
Meme il est arrive quelquefois de manger 
Le berger. 
Sparman gives an account of a trumpeter, whose 
faculties were suspended by the over liberal use of 
strong liquor, or, in other words, who was dead 
drunk, and was left in the open air. A hyaena, 
thinking him a fair prize, seized the senseless man, 
and drew him a considerable distance toward a moun- 
tain ; but before the beast had begun to regale him- 
self, the man was roused to a knowledge of his 
situation, and adopted the expedient of sounding an 
alarm with his trumpet, which effectually frightened 
and drove away the disappointed animal. It is pos- 
sible the learned traveller may have been a little 
imposed on by the romantic disposition of his in- 
formant having added some poetical effusion, to 
ornament the simple tale of a hyaena’s being fright- 
ened at the sound of a trumpet. “ Eleven buckram 
men grown out of two!” 
