er than the fore ones, so that the
rump is far lower than the shoulders; and the line of the back, instead
of being horizontal, as in most animals, droops obliquely towards the
tail.

The short thick neck and strong jaws are characteristics; the former so
much so, that in the days of fabulous natural history the hyena was said
to be without cervical vertebrae. Its thick neck and powerful jaw-bones
have their uses. It is by virtue of these that the hyena can make a
meal upon bones, which would be of no use whatever to the ordinary wolf
or other beast of prey. It can break almost the largest and strongest
joints, and not only extract their marrow, but crush the bones
themselves, and swallow them as food. Here, again, we have proof of
Nature's adaptation. It is just where these large bones are found in
greatest plenty that we find the hyena. Nature suffers nothing to be
wasted.

Hyenas are the wolves of Africa--that is, they are in Africa the
representatives of the large wolf, which does not exist there. It is
true the jackal is a wolf in every respect, but only a small one; and
there is no true wolf in Africa of the large kind, such as the gaunt
robber of the Pyrenees, or his twin brother of America. But the hyena
is the _wolf of Africa_.

And of all wolves he is the ugliest and most brute-like. There is not a
graceful or beautiful bit about him. In fact, I was about to pronounce
him the ugliest animal in creation, when the baboons came into my mind.
They of course exhibit the _ne plus ultra_ of ugliness; and, indeed, the
hyenas are not at all unlike them in general aspect, as well as in some
of their habits. Some early writers even classed them together.

Now we have been speaking of the hyena, as if there was but one species.
For a long time but one was known--the common or "striped hyena"
(_Hyena vulgaris_), and it was about this one that so many false stories
have been told. Perhaps no other animal has held so conspicuous a place
in the world of mystery and horror. Neither vampire nor dragon have
surpassed him. Our ancestors believed that he could fascinate any one
with his glance, lure them after him, and then devour them--that he
changed his sex every year--that he could transform himself into a
comely youth, and thus beguile young maidens off into the woods to be
eaten up--that he could imitate the human voice perfectly--that it was
his custom to conceal himself near a house, listen until the name