the sleeping traveller, they will carry off whatever they can find. For want of living prey they will devour the most putrid carcases, and even disinter the dead, when the grave is not made of sufficient depth. When they cannot obtain animal food, they subsist on fruits and nuts, burrowing in the earth, where they lie all day, and sallying forth at night in quest of prey. They are gregarious, assembling in packs of forty, fifty, and even two hundred; hunting by the nose, for they have a very quick scent, like hounds in full cry; from evening till morning filling the air with the most horrid howlings. When they commence their chase, the lion, panther, and other large beasts of prey, whose ears are dull, rouse themselves to action, and follow the jackals in silence, till they have hunted down their prey, when they come up and devour the fruits of their labour. Hence the jackal, from an erroneous idea that he is in confe

deracy with the lion for the pursuit of their mutual prey, has been popularly called “the lion's provider."

The nocturnal cry of the jackal is described as more terrific than the or the roar of the tiger.

howl of the hyena, Captain Beechey, in the account of his expedition to explore the north coast of Africa, says :-"The cry of the jackal has something in it rather appalling, when heard for the first time at night; and, as they usually come in packs, the first shriek which is uttered is always the signal for a general chorus. We hardly know a sound which partakes less of harmony; and indeed the sudden burst of the long protracted scream, succeeding immediately to the opening note, is scarcely less impressive than the roll of the thunder-clap immediately after a flash of lightning. The effect of this music is very much increased when the first note is heard in the distance-a circumstance which

often occurs-and the answering yell bursts out from several points at once, within a few yards, or feet, of the place where the auditors are sleeping."

The Barbary jackal, about the size of a fox and of a brownish fawn colour, has a bushy tail. He is found in Egypt, never in flocks, like the common jackal, but always singly. In his habits he much resembles the fox, stealing abroad, often in the open day, and carrying off poultry and eggs. In the hunting of wild birds also he exhibits extraordinary craft and agility. His cunning is strikingly depicted in the following narrative by Sonnini:

"One day as I was meditating in a garden, I stopped near a hedge. A jackal, hearing no noise, was coming through the hedge towards me, and when he had cleared it, he was just at my feet. On perceiving me he was so surprised that he remained motionless for some seconds, without even attempting to

escape.

His eyes were fixed steadily on me; and perplexity was painted in his countenance. in a manner of which I could not have supposed it susceptible, and which denoted great delicacy of instinct. On my part, I was afraid to move lest I should put an end to this situation, which afforded me much pleasure. At length, after he had taken a few steps, first to one side, then to the other, as if too much confused to know which way to get off, and keeping his eyes still upon me, he retired, not running, but creeping with a slow step, setting down his feet one after another with singular caution. He seemed so much afraid of making a noise in his flight, that he held up his large tail almost in a horizontal line, that it might neither drag on the ground nor brush against the plants. On the other side of the hedge I found the fragments of his meal, which had consisted of a bird of prey, great part of which he had devoured.”

The third species, commonly called the Cape jackal, from its inhabiting the territory of the Cape of Good Hope, like the preceding, resembles a fox, and is characterised by a triangular mark of blackish gray upon the back, broad at the shoulders, and terminating in a point at the origin of the tail.

THE HYENA.

Or the two varieties of the hyæna, the striped and the spotted, which are spread over the greater portion of Africa and the southern half of Asia, the former is best known to Europeans it is found both solitary and in numerous troops in Morocco and the forests of western Africa, in Syria and throughout India. The spotted hyena roves in prodigious numbers through Abyssinia, the territories of the Cape, and the surrounding countries.