The Striped Hyaena {Hyaena striata) is the most widely distributed and best known form, being found throughout India, Persia, Asia Minor, and the northern half of Africa, while, if the strand wolf {Hyoena νιllosf)cA the Cape colonists is only a variety of this species, as many naturalists suppose, its range will be thereby extended to the southern extremity of the African continent. It resembles a wolf in size, and is of a greyish-brown colour, marked with indistinct longitudinal stripes of a darker hue, while the legs are transversely striped as in the zebra. The hairs on its body are long, especially on the ridge of the neck and back, where they form a distinct mane, which is continued along the tail. The hyaena is nocturnal in its habits, preferring by day the gloom of caves and ruins, or of the burrows which it occasionally forms, but coming forth at sunset to make night hideous with its unearthly howling, which, when the animal is excited, changes into what has been compared to demoniac laughter, and hence the name of “laughing hyaena,” by which it is also known. The food of those creatures consists chiefly of carrion, and they thus perform a highly useful service in hot countries by devouring the remains of dead animals which might otherwise pollute the air. So ravenous, however, are they that even the bodies of the buried dead are not safe from their attacks, their powerful claws enabling them to gain access to the newly interred bodies in the Eastern cemeteries, which they are said habitually to frequent. They also feed on the flesh of animals, which they hunt in packs. When driven by hunger they have thus been frequently known to enter villages by night and to carry off such domestic animals as they might chance to find. Bruce, the African traveller, states that everywhere in Abyssinia they were a plague. “Gondar,” he says, “was dull of them from the time it turned dark till the dawn. In short, the hyaena was the plague of our lives, the terror of our night walks, the destruction of our mules and asses, which above all others are his favourite food.” Although, in proportion to its size, possessing probably the most powerful teeth and jaws in the whole mammalian series, the pusillanimity of the hyaena is such as to prevent its attacking animals greatly inferior to itself in strength. The

Arab, for this reason, holds it in contempt; and, when be condescends to hunt the hyaena, he does not waste his ammunition upon it, but runs it down with dogs. It has usually been regarded as untameable; this, however, is not the case, for when properly treιted in captivity, it has been known to exhibit the greatest docility and attachment to its keepers; and Colonel Sykes states that in certain districts of Central India where those creatures abound they are as susceptible of domestication as ordinary dogs.

The Spotted Hyaena {Hyaena crocata) takes the place of the striped species in the southern half of the African continent, to which it is confined. It resembles the other in size, but differs from it considerably in appearance, the stripes of the one being replaced by dark brown spots on a yellowish ground in the other, while in the “tiger-wolf,” as this species is called at the Cape, the mane is much less distinct. According to Schweinfurth, who met with it in the heart of Africa, it is a much more powerful and savage animal than the northern form. Although averse to hunting living prey, it takes to the chase when carrion is not to be had, and the same traveller was on one occasion startled by a spotted hyaena which darted past him, like lightning, in pursuit of an antelope. At the Cape it was formerly very common, and occasionally committed great havoc among the cattle, while it did not hesitate to enter the Kaffre dwellings at night and carry off the child sleeping by its mother’s side. By persistent trapping and shooting, its numbers have now been considerably reduced, with the result, however, of making it, like the hippopotamus of the same regions, exceedingly wary, so that it is not readily caught in any trap with which it has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted. Like the northern species, the spotted hyaena has been tamed, and has occasionally been trained to take the place of the dog. Its skin exhibits a considerable variety of colour and marking, and Schweinfurth found many skins in use among the Niam-niams of Central Africa, in the form of aprons. The brown hyaena {Hyaena rufa) is also a native of South Africa.

Although hyaenas are now confined to the warmer regions of the Old World, their fossil remains show that they had a much more northerly range during Tertiary times. Abundant remains of a larger species than any now living have been found in the caves of England, France, and Germany. This species, known as the cave hyaena {Hyaena spelaed), is supposed to have been most nearly allied to the spotted hyaena of South Africa, but does not appear to have extended farther south than the middle of Europe. Remains which have been doubtfully identified as belonging to the striped species have also been found in the south of France, and others in Sicily and Algeria, undoubtedly belonging to the spotted form of South Africa, which must thus have had a much more northerly extension in Tertiary times. No remains of the hyaena are known to occur in the New World.

The original of the cultivated hyacinth, Hyacinthus orientalis, is by comparison an insignificant plant, bearing on a spike only a few small narrow-lobed washy blue flowers. So great has been the improvement effected by the florists, and chiefly by the Dutch, that the modern hyacinth would scarcely be recognized as the descendant of the type above referred to, the spikes being long and dense, composed of a large number of flowers; the spikes produced by strong bulbs not unfrequently measure 6 or 7 inches in length and from 7 to 9 inches in circumference, with the flowers closely set on from bottom to top. Of late years much improvement has been effected in the size of the individual flowers and the breadth of their recurving lobes, as well as in securing increased brilliancy and depth of colour.

The peculiarities of the soil and climate of Holland are so very favourable to their production that Dutch florists have made a specialty of the growth of those and other bulbous-rooted flowers. An area of 125 acres is devoted to the growth of hyacinths in the vicinity of Haarlem, and is estimated to bring in a revenue of nearly £30,000. Some notion of the vast number imported into England annually may be formed from the fact that, for the supply of flowering plants to Covent Garden, one market grower alone produces from 60,000 to 70,000 in pots under glass, their blooming period being accelerated by artificial heat, and extending from Christmas onwards until they bloom naturally in the open ground.

In the spring flower garden few plants make a more effective display than the hyacinth. Dotted in clumps in the flower borders, and arranged in masses of well-contrasted colours in beds in the flower garden, there are no flowers which impart during their season—March and April—a gayer tone to the parterre. The bulbs are rarely grown a second time, either for indoor or outdoor culture, though with care they might be utilized for the latter purpose; and hence the enormous numbers which are procured each recurring year from Holland.

The first hyacinths were single-flowered, but towards'the close of the 17th century double-flowered ones began to appear, and till a recent period these bulbs were the most esteemed. At the present time, however, the single - flowered sorts are in the ascendant, as they produce more regular and symmetrical spikes of blossom, the flowers being closely set and more or less horizontal in direction, while most of the double sorts have the bells distant and dependent, so that the spike is loose and by comparison ineffective. For pot culture, and for growth in water-glasses especially, the single-flowered sorts are greatly to be preferred. Few if any of the original kinds are now in cultivation, a succession of new and improved varieties having been raised, the demand for which is regulated in some respects by fashion. At the present day our nurserymen offer in their annual catalogues of select sorts between two and three hundred distinct varieties.

The earliest of all the hyacinths, and one which is very valuable for forcing into flower in winter, is called the white Roman hyacinth. It is small-flowered, but very sweet, and, if potted in September or October, as soon as the bulbs can be procured after importation, may easily be had in blossom by Christmas, when white flowers are so much sought after. Of course this is done with the aid of a forcing-house, but a very high temperature is not required. The best soil for pot hyacinths is made up of two parts turfy loam, one part decayed leaf-mould, and one part well-decomposed cow dung, with sand enough to make it porous, and with sufficient drainage.

The name of hyacinth is applied to several other plants having bulbous roots. The Cape hyacinth is Scilla corymbosa; the grape hyacinth, Muscari botryoides ; the tassel hyacinth, Muscari comosum, and the feathered hyacinth, Muscari comosum monstrosum; the starch hyacinth, Muscari racemosum·, the star hyacinth, Scilla amoena·, the lily hyacinth, Scilla Liliohyacinthus ; the hyacinth of Peru, Scilla peruviana ; the wild hyacinth or blue-bell, Hyacinthus non scriptus; the wild hyacinth of America, Camassia esculenta ; the Missouri hyacinth, Hesperoscordum lacteum ; and the native hyacinth of Tasmania, Thelymitra media.