Читать книгу The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Unknown - Страница 6

A servant of Mr. William Hunter's, by name Thomas Jones, who lived at Chittrah, had a full grown hyena which ran loose about his house like a dog, and I have seen him play with it with as much familiarity. They feed on small animals and carrion, and I believe often come in for the prey left by tigers and leopards after their appetites have been satiated. They are great enemies of dogs, and kill numbers of them.

The natives of India affirm that tigers, panthers, and leopards, have a great aversion to hyenas, on account of their destroying their young, which I believe they have an opportunity of doing, as the parents leave them during the greatest part of the day. The inhabitants, therefore, feel no apprehension in taking away the young whenever they find them, knowing the dam is seldom near.... Hyenas are slow in their pace, and altogether inactive; I have often seen a few terriers keep them at bay, and bite them severely by the hind quarter; their jaws, however, are exceedingly strong, and a single bite, without holding on more than a few seconds, is sufficient to kill a large dog. They stink horribly, make no earths of their own, lie under rocks, or resort to the earths of wolves, as foxes do to those of badgers; and it is not uncommon to find wolves and hyenas in the same bed of earths.

I was informed by several gentlemen, of whose veracity I could not doubt, that Captain Richards, of the Bengal Native Infantry, had a servant of the tribe of Shecarries, who was in the habit of going into the earths of wolves, fastening strings on them, and on the legs of hyenas, and then drawing them out; he constantly supplied his master and the gentlemen at the station with them, who let them loose on a plain, and rode after them with spears, for practice and amusement. This man possessed such an acute and exquisite sense of smelling, that he could always tell by it if there were any animals in the earths, and could distinguish whether they were hyenas or wolves.