Genus Hyæna
No. 220. HYÆNA STRIATA.
The Striped Hyæna (Jerdon’s No. 118).
Native Names.—Taras, Hundar, Jhirak (in Hurriana); Lakhar-baghar, Lokra-bagh, Hindi; Naukra-bagh, Bengali; Rerha in Central India; Kirba and Kat-Kirba, Canarese; Korna-gandu, Telegu.
Habitat.—All over India; but as far as I can gather not in Burmah nor in Ceylon; it is not mentioned in Blyth’s and Kellaart’s catalogues. It is also found in Northern Africa and throughout Asia Minor and Persia; it is common in Palestine.
Description.—Pale yellowish-grey, with transverse tawny or blackish bands which encircle the body, and extend downwards on to the legs. The neck and back are maned.
Size.—Head and body, 3½ feet; tail, about 1½ feet.
This repulsive and cowardly creature is yet a useful beast in its way. Living almost exclusively on carrion, it is an excellent scavenger. Most wild animals are too active for it, but it feeds on the remains left by the larger felines, and such creatures as die of disease, and can, on a pinch, starve for a considerable time. The African spotted hyæna is said to commit great havoc in the sheep-fold. The Indian one is very destructive to dogs, and constantly carries off pariahs from the outskirts of villages. The natives declare that the hyæna tempts the dogs out by its unearthly cries, and then falls upon them. Dr. Jerdon relates a story of a small dog belonging to an officer of the 33rd M. N. I. (the regiment he was with when I first knew him) being carried off by a hyæna whose den was known. Some of the sepoys went after it, entered the cave, killed the hyæna, and recovered the dog alive, and with but little damage done to it.
The hyæna is of a timorous nature, seldom, if ever, showing fight. Two of them nearly ran over me once as I was squatting on a deer run waiting for sambar, which were being beaten out of a hill. I flung my hat in the face of the leading one, on which both turned tail and fled. The Arabs have a proverb, “As cowardly as a hyæna.”
The Cryptoprocta ferox is not an inhabitant of India, being found only in the interior of Madagascar. The genus contains only one species, a most savage little animal; it is the most perfect link between the cats and the civets, having retractile claws, one more premolar in each jaw; five toes, and semi-plantigrade feet. It should properly come before the hyænas, to which the next in order is the South African Aard-wolf (Proteles Lalandii), which forms the connection between the hyæna and the civet, though more resembling the former. It is placed in a family by itself, which contains but one genus and species. It has the sloping back of the hyæna, the hind legs being lower than the fore, and it might almost, from its shape and colouring, be taken for that animal when young. The skull however is prolonged, and the teeth are civet-like. It is nocturnal and gregarious, several living in the same burrow. Like the hyæna it lives on carrion. It has a fifth toe on the fore feet.
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