The Hyenas are often grouped with the Cat family, as they have many points of resemblance (particularly the rough tongue) and prowl and seize their prey in much the same manner. But the Hyenas differ from all the members of the Cat family in having the fore legs longer than the hind ones, giving them a shambling gait and a strange, sneaking appearance. They have large heads, and their jaws are very powerful, and able to lift easily a prey of great weight. Their coat is very thick, and forms a kind of flowing mane along the ridge of the spine. Their claws are short and stout, and are more useful for digging than tearing their prey. Dreadful tales have been told of the Hyenas, and their unclean habits; how they rob the grave yards and devour the dead bodies, and how they prefer decaying animals, to killing their prey and eating it while fresh. But they accomplish a good work in one direction, even if it does fill us with disgust. They perform the same service among quadrupeds that the Vulture does among birds.
In the cities and villages of Africa, in which the care of the public roads is often left to chance for their cleaning, the Hyenas are in the habit of removing all the decaying substances, which would otherwise soon cause diseases by decaying in the hot burning African sun. The Hyena even eats all the bones of the carcasses on which they feed.
The Hyenas are not so fierce as is usually supposed. If they can find sufficient decaying matter to satisfy their hunger, they will seldom attack living prey, and they will never attack mankind except in cases of great necessity, but they have been known to break down the walls which the inhabitants of African villages erect around their homes and kill and drag off the cattle.
STRIPED HYENA.
The Striped Hyena is of a grey color, marked with upright stripes of brown or black. It has a thick mane which extends along the whole length of the neck, and down the center of the back. This mane stands erect when the animal is very angry. This Hyena is about the size of a large Dog.
The Spotted Hyena, and an animal very much like it which is some times called the Aard Wolf, and the “Hunting Hyena,” all belong to this family, but there is very little difference in their forms or their manner of living. The Spotted Hyena, which is called by the colonists of the Cape of Good Hope the Tiger Wolf, is most commonly met with in Southern Africa, where its appetite for living prey, as well as for carrion, causes it to be justly regarded as a very dangerous neighbor; indeed, as we learn from the reports of travelers, it seems to be especially fond of attacking children, and many harrowing tales might be told of the fiend-like deeds of which it is guilty.
“To show clearly the preference of the Spotted Hyena for human flesh,” says Steedman, “it will be necessary to observe that the Mambookies build their houses in the form of bee-hives, and tolerably large, often eighteen or twenty feet in diameter; at the higher or back part of the house, the floor is raised until within three or four feet of the front, where it suddenly terminates, leaving an area from thence to the wall, in which every night the calves are tied, to protect them from storms or wild beasts. Now, it would be natural to suppose that should the Hyena enter, he would seize the first object for his prey, especially as the natives always lie with the fire at their feet; but notwithstanding this, the practice of this animal has been in every instance to pass by the calves in the area, and even the fire, and take the children from under the mother’s caress; and this in such a gentle and cautious manner that the parent has been unconscious of her loss until the cries of the poor little innocent have reached her from without, when hopelessly a prisoner in the jaws of the monster.”
The Hunting Hyena was first described by Mr. Burchell. It is smaller and of a more slender shape than either the Striped or the Spotted Hyena; the ground color of its body is sandy, shaded with darker hair, varied with irregular blotches of black, and spots of white. In its teeth it resembles the Dog; but, on the other hand, it approaches the Hyenas in having only four toes on each foot.
Mr. Burchell was fortunate in bringing home a living specimen, which he kept chained up for more than a year. At first it was so ferocious that no one attempted to tame it; but at length its manners became softened, and it used to play with a Dog chained up in the same yard; yet still the man who fed it never dared to venture his hand within its reach. Mr. Burchell informs us that in a wild state this animal hunts in packs; though in general it hunts at night, it frequently pursues its prey by day, and as it is very fleet, none but the swiftest animals can escape it. Sheep and oxen are particularly objects of its attacks, the first openly, the latter only by surprising them in their sleep and suddenly biting off their tails, a mode of attack for which the wide gape and great strength of its jaws are peculiarly adapted. This species is found throughout Africa.