HYAiNAS. 
491 
returning; indeed, unless they scent food, they always make use of paths in their 
nocturnal rambles, whether made by themselves or by men or game. In a 
primitive state there is no doubt that they are chieffy dependent upon the lion 
for their daily food, and it is equally certain that they must be able to go 
without eating for immense periods. The old hunters declare that their numbers 
have much increased within their memory in the districts in which there is 
most hunting, and as so much game goes away and dies unseen of its wounds, 
which the hyaenas are easily able to find by the blood-track which they leave, to 
say nothing of the amount of meat that is purposely left for want of a use for it, 
there is every reason to think that they must find man a better purveyor than the 
lion, and increase accordingly.” 
Extinct Hyaenas. 
The occurrence of fossil remains of the spotted and striped hyaenas in the 
cavern and other superficial deposits of Europe has been already mentioned. In 
the antecedent Pliocene period there were, however, a number of hyaenas belonging 
to species now extinct; some of these being nearly allied to the existing forms, 
while others differed markedly in the number and characters of their teeth. These 
extinct hyaenas are found over the greater part of Europe—from France to Italy, 
Greece, and Hungary-—and also in Persia, India, and China. Colvin’s hyaena from 
North India, of which a portion of the lower jaw is figured on p. 482, and the robust 
hyasna of Italy were nearly allied to the spotted species, while the Pikermi hyaena 
of Greece differed from all living species in having four premolar teeth in the lower 
jaw. The Siwalik hyaena of Northern India and the Grecian hyaena were allied to 
the striped species, but both have an additional molar behind the lower flesh-tooth, 
while the former has four lower premolars. Again, the long-jawed hyaena from 
Northern India and a nearly allied species from Greece differ from existing forms 
in their long jaws and the compressed form of the premolar teeth, of which there 
were four in the lower jaw. These two species make a marked approach to the 
civets, but this is still more evident in a smaller extinct hyaena from Europe, 
referred to a distinct genus under the name of Palhycena. In this there were 
four premolar and two molar teeth in each jaw, so that the total number of teeth 
was forty, or the same as in the true civets, and this extinct species was so nearly 
allied to the extinct civet mentioned on p. 479 as the ictithere. that the two families 
may be regarded as passing one into the other. 
