The Thj senas Device. 
33 
Sir Kenelm Digby, who is somewhat of a Darwinian 
in his suggestions as to the mode in which various crea¬ 
tures may have acquired their different ways of escaping 
capture and obtaining food, thus accounts for the hyaena’s 
mode of proceeding :— 
“ That the jaccatray, or hysena, when he is hungry, should have 
his fantasy call out from his memory the images of those beasts 
which use to serve him in that occasion, is the ordinary course of 
nature: and that together with those images, there should like wise 
come along the actions and soundes which used to accompany them, 
and are lodged together with them in the memory, is also naturall; 
then, as little strange it is, that by his owne voice he should imitate 
those soundes, which at that time do so powerfully possesse his ima¬ 
gination : and having a great docility in those organes which forme 
the voice, like a parrat, he represented them so lively, that the 
deceived beasts flock to him, and so are caught by him: which at the 
first happened by chance, but afterwardes by memory.” (A Treatise 
of Bodies , ed. 1644, p. 314.) 
Hence it would follow that the hyaena which had the best 
memory, and could imitate the largest number of beasts, 
would have the greatest chance of a dinner. 
Topsell (p. 434) has, as usual, something marvellous 
to add as to the structure of this animal:— 
“ Their back bone stretched it selfe out to the head, so as the 
necke cannot bend except the whole body be turned about, and there¬ 
fore whensoever he hath occasion to wry his necke, he must supply 
that qualitie by removing of his whole bodie.” 
Mr. Harting, in his Extinct British Animals , 1880, has 
completely refuted the popular notion that 
Wolves were exterminated in England and 
Wales in consequence of the tribute imposed upon the 
latter country by King Edgar in the year 965, and has 
traced the history of the wolf in Great Britain. From his 
account, which is derived both from historical evidence 
and from tradition, we find that no wolf is reported to have 
been seen in England later than the reign of Henry VII. 
In Scotland wolves were plentiful till the beginning of 
