348 
THE STORY OF THE HYENA. 
) * . 
of three or four miles, if the ground is broken by ravines. It is a cowardly 
animal, and shows but little fight when brought to bay. The young are very 
tamable, and show great signs of attachment to their owner, in spite of all 
that has been written about the untamable ferocity of the hyena. 
The striped hyena’s food is mainly carrion or carcasses killed by other ani¬ 
mals; and in inhabited districts the animal is much dreaded on account of its 
grave-robbing propensities. Portions of such carcasses as it finds are eaten on 
the spot, while other parts are dragged off to its den, the situation of which 
is generally indicated by the fragments of bones around the entrance. These 
hyenas will also feast on skeletons that have been picked down to the bone by 
jackals and vultures; the bone-cracking power of the hyena’s jaws rendering 
such relics acceptable, if not favorite, food. 
The striped hyena—probably on account of its “body-snatching” propen¬ 
sities—is cordially detested by the natives of all the countries it inhabits. 
When a hyena is killed, the body is treated in many parts of India with every 
mark of indignity, and finally burnt. On one occasion in the Punjab, I came 
across a party of natives cruelly ill-treating a nearly full-grown hyena, which 
had been rendered helpless by its jaws being muzzled and its feet broken. I 
soon ended the sufferings of the poor brute by a bullet. 
Although, owing to their nocturnal habits, hyenas are seldom seen, yet 
in some parts of India, from the multitude of their tracks, they must be very 
common. 
The African spotted hyena is much larger and more powerful than the 
striped species. It inhabits the greater part of Africa at the present day. 
Formerly the geographical range of this hyena was far more extensive than 
it is at present, as is proved by the vast quantities of its remains found in the 
caves of various parts of Europe, from Gibraltar in the south to Yorkshire in 
the north. It was formerly considered, indeed, that the so-called “cave- 
hyena” indicated a distinct species from the living one; but zoologists are 
now generally in accord in regarding the two as specifically identical, al¬ 
though the fossil European hyenas were generally of larger dimensions than 
the existing African form. 
