The 1110,4 typical and at the same time familiar form is the striped hyena (ilyono Ntrioto which ranges from Abyssinia and the Libyan Desert east ward to India. where it is muumuu throughout all the more open country, roaming widely at night in search of carrion. or living sheep and dogs. It is dirty gray, with narrow tawny or zebrurlikr stripes. a coarse mane along the back, and a bushy tail. It is omardly, silent. and both hated and feared by the rural people. Two other spe cies are exellisively African. and differ much from the striped. so that some naturalists put them in another geniis (Crocuta). The spotted hyena //yea,/ (Tor/it:it is larger than either the striped or the broWil. and is yellowish, thickly spotted with black, with nose and feet dark. It inhabits nearly all Africa smith of the Sahara, bunts in packs, is courageous, and really does most of the ravaging it is acensed of. Its un earthly coughing cry is one of the most terrify ing of animal utterances. Owing to the peculiar arrangement of the reproductive organs in this species, it is extremely difficult, except by care ful examination. to distinguish the sexes by external charaeters, and from this fact the old myth that hyenas are hermaphrodites has doubt less arisen.
Median in size stands the brown hyena (11 yrnu brunnen), found on both sides of south ern .1fri•a near the coast, and often Oil
the mo1mtains. It is a less repulsive looking animal than the others; has a dog-like mantle of long brown hair which half conceals its barred legs, and be comes white on the sides of the head and chest, giving a quaint appearance to the front view, snipe the face itself is black, while the tall ears are gray.
The hyena family, of comparatively recent ori gin. appears to have evolved from the \'irerrilc, through such intermediate genus as I•titherium of the Lower Pliocene of Southern Europe. That Ltitherinin ate bones in the same manner as do the modern hyenas has been proved by the na ture of the coprolites found asso(-iated with their skeletons. True livenas are eommon fossils in the Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits of Europe, during which periods they roamed in abundaneo as far north as France and England, as is ex hibited by (heir remains in cave floors; and they are known in deposits of similar age in Asia.. None have been found in America.
Consult: Blanford, Fauna of British India: Mammals (London, 1888-91) ; Zoidogy of Abys sinia (London, 1870) ; and the writings of sports men-travelers in Africa and India. Sec Plate of HYENAS.