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.