Aristotle calls it by two names, hyæna and glanus; names which we may be assured are applied to the same animals by comparing the passages wherein they are mentioned.[Q] The ancient Latins retained the name hyæna, and never adopted that of glanus. In the writings of the modern Latins, however, we find the ganus, or gannus, and belbus employed as names for the hyæna. According to Rasis, the Arabians call it kabo, or zabo, names that appear to be derived from the word zeeb, which, in their language denominates a wolf. In Barbary the hyæna bears the name of dubbah, as appears from the description given of this animal by Dr. Shaw.[R] In Turkey it is called zirtlaat, according to Nieremberg; in Persia kaftaar, as stated by Kæmpfer; and castar, according to Pietro della Valle. These are the only names which seem actually to refer to the hyæna; though it is nevertheless probable that the lycaon and the crocuta of India and Ethiopia, of which the ancients speak, are no other than the hyæna. Porphyry expressly says that the crocuta of the Indies is the hyæna of the Greeks; and, indeed, all they have written, whether true or fabulous, respecting the lycaon and crocuta, bears some analogy to the nature of the hyæna. But we shall make no further conjectures on this subject until we treat of fabulous animals, and the affinities they have with real ones.
[Q] Aristotle Hist. Animal. lib. vi. c. 32. lib. viii. c. 5.
[R] The Dubbah is nearly the size of the wolf. Its neck is so exceedingly stiff, that when it offers to look behind, or even on one side, it is obliged to turn the whole body, like the hog, the badger, and the crocodile. Its colour is somewhat inclined to a reddish brown, with a few brown streaks of a darker hue, it has very long hairs on the neck which it can occasionally erect. Its paws are large and well armed, with which it digs up plants, and sometimes dead bodies from their graves. Next to the lion and panther, the dubbah is the most fierce of all the animals of Barbary. As it is furnished with a mane, has a difficulty in turning the head, and scrapes up dead bodies from their graves, it has every appearance of being the hyæna of the ancients. See Shaw’s Travels.
The panther of the Greeks, the lupus canarius of Gaza, and the lupus armenius of the modern Latins and Arabians, seem to be the same animal, that is, the jackall, which the Turks call cical, according to Pollux, and thacal according to Spon and Wheeler; which the modern Greeks distinguish by the name of zachalia, the Persians siechal, or schachal, and the Moors of Barbary deeb; that of jackall, however, having been adopted by a number of travellers, to that we shall give the preference, and only remark at present, that he differs from the hyæna not only in size, figure, and colour, but in natural habits, for the hyæna is a solitary animal, while the jackall is seldom seen but in troops. After the example of Kæmpfer, some of our nomenclators have called the jackall lupus aureus, because his hair is of a lively yellow hue.
It is therefore evident, that the jackall is a very different animal from the hyæna; and no less so than the glutton, which is an animal confined to the northern regions of Lapland, Russia, and Siberia; it is a stranger even in the temperate climates, and therefore could never have inhabited Arabia, or any of the other warm countries in which the hyæna resides. It differs also in form, for the glutton bears a strong resemblance to a very large badger; his legs are so short that his belly almost reaches the ground; he has five toes on each of his feet, has no mane, and his body is covered with black hair, excepting sometimes a few reddish yellow hairs upon his sides; in short, he resembles him in nothing but in being exceedingly voracious. He was unknown to the ancients, who had made no great progress into the north of Europe. Olaus is the first author who mentions this animal and from his prodigious gluttony he called him gulo. In Sclavonia he afterwards obtained the name of rosomak, and in Germany jerff, or wildfras, and the French travellers have called him glouton. There are varieties in this species, as well as in that of the jackall, which we shall speak of when we come to the particular history of those animals, and shall only here observe, that those varieties, instead of assimilating them with the hyæna, render them additionally a more distinct species.
The civet has nothing in common with the hyæna but the glandular pouch, under the tail, and the mane along the neck and back-bone. It differs from the hyæna in figure and size, not being more than half as large; his ears are short and covered with hair, whereas those of the hyæna are long and naked; he has also short legs, and five toes upon each foot, while the legs of the hyæna are long, and he has only four toes upon each foot; nor does the civet dig up the earth in search for dead bodies. From these differences these animals are easily to be distinguished from each other.
With respect to the baboon, which is the papio of the Latins, and as we have before observed, has been mistaken for the hyæna, merely from the ambiguity of names, which seems to have arisen from a passage of Leo Africanus, and since copied by Marmol. “The dabuh say these authors, is of the size and form of the wolf; and scratches up dead bodies from their graves.” From which it was supposed to mean the dubbah, or hyæna, although it is expressly stated in the same passages that the dubbah has hands and feet resembling those of a man; a remark which, however applicable to the baboon, cannot be applied to the hyæna.
From taking a view of the lupus-marinus of Bellon, which Gesner has copied, we might mistake it for the figure of the hyæna, to which it bears a great resemblance; but his description corresponds not with our hyæna, for he says, the lupus-marinus is an amphibious animal which feeds on fish, and has sometimes been seen on the coasts of the British ocean; besides this author says nothing of the peculiar characteristics which distinguish the hyæna from all other animals. It is possible that Bellon, prepossessed with the notion that the civet was the hyæna of the ancients, has given the figure of the real one under the name of lupus-marinus, for so striking and singular are the characters of that animal, that it is hardly possible to be deceived in them; he is, perhaps, the only quadruped that has four toes upon each foot. Like the badger he has an aperture under the tail, which does not penetrate into the body; his ears are long, straight, and naked; his head is shorter and more square than that of the wolf; his legs are longer, especially the hind ones; his eyes are placed like those of the dog; the hair of his body and mane is of a dark grey, with a small intermixture of yellow and black, and disposed all along in waves, and though in size he equals the wolf, yet he has, nevertheless, a contracted appearance.
This wild and solitary animal resides in the caverns of mountains, the clefts of rocks, or in dens, which he forms for himself under the earth. Though taken ever so young he is not to be tamed; he is naturally ferocious. He lives like the wolf, by depredation, but he is more strong and daring. He sometimes attacks men, and darts with a ferocious resolution on all kinds of cattle; he follows the flocks, and even breaks down the sheep-folds in the night to get at his prey. His eyes shine in the dark, and it is asserted that he sees better by night than day. All naturalists who have treated of this animal, except Kæmpfer, say, that his cry resembles the noise of a man who is vomiting, while the latter asserts it to be like the lowing of a calf. He defends himself against the lion, stands in no awe of the panther, and attacks the ounce, which is incapable of resisting him. When at a loss for prey he scrapes up the earth with his feet, and tears out the carcasses of animals and men, which in the countries he inhabits are promiscuously buried in the fields. He is found in almost all the hot climates of Africa and Asia, and it is probable that the animal called farasse, at Madagascar, which resembles the wolf in figure, but is larger and stronger, is the same animal.
Of this animal more absurd stories have been told than of any other. The ancients have gravely written that the hyæna is alternately male and female; that when it brings forth, suckles and rears its progeny, it remains as a female the whole year, but the year following it resumes the functions of the male, and obliges its companion to submit to those of the female. The circumstance which gave rise to this fable is plainly the orifice under the tail, in both males and females, independently of the organs of generation peculiar to both sexes, and which are the same in the hyæna as in all other animals. It has also been affirmed that this animal could imitate the human voice, remember the names of shepherds, call upon, fascinate, and render them motionless; that he can terrify shepherdesses, cause them to forget and neglect their flocks, to be distracted in love, &c. All this might surely happen without the intervention of the hyæna! But I shall conclude here, to avoid the reproach which has been cast upon Pliny, that of taking pleasure in compiling and relating absurd fables.