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Show 1878.] GENERATIVE ORGANS OF HYTENA CROCUTA. 427 both species differ widely in appearance, and that consequently the sexes of each are readily distinguishable one from the other. If this be granted, we need not further attempt to explain an assertion, the origin of which has no foundation in fact. But that this hypothesis did originate with reference to either of these species I am not prepared to admit, as it appears to me that the bisexual character attributed to the Hyaena allows of a rational explanation if we regard that character as referring not to either //. striata or H. brunnea, either of which Aristotle may have examined, but to H. crocuta, which he certainly did not examine. And as further showing that in all probability Aristotle unwittingly mixed up and confounded reports regarding totally distinct animals, I would direct attention to two of the sentences above quoted, in one of which he says, " It is said that it (the Hyaena) has the genital organs of both sexes at once ;" and in another "Thefemale hyaena is rarely caught. Hunters maintain that for ten males they catch but one female." Passing over the evident inconsistency of these two statements, I have already shown that the first is inexplicable when applied to either H. striata or H. brunnea ; and, in like manner, the second is equally devoid of meaning when regarded as having reference to either of these species, inasmuch as we have no reason to believe that the proportion in number of the sexes is different in either of them from what it is in other carnivorous mammals, or that the female of either is more difficult of capture than the male. W e conclude, therefore, that if the bisexual theory of the ancients regarding the Hyaena had any foundation in fact at all, such fact had reference not to either H. striata or If. brunnea ; and by a process of exclusion we are compelled to regard it as having reference to H. crocuta. I have already shown that it is almost impossible to distinguish the female of this species from the male by the mere inspection of the external genital organs; and in this fact lies, as I believe, the explanation of the views held by the ancients regarding these animals. This explanation is moreover borne out by Aristotle's observation that " the female Hyaena is rarely caught," a fact which Pliny also records. The latter historian makes a further, with reference to the present inquiry important observation which is not to be found in the writings of Aristotle. He says, " It is a matter of common belief that the Hyaena is bisexual, and that it is male and female in alternate years." It is evident here that Pliny, like Aristotle, mixes up distinct reports concerning the animal, as it requires no elaborate argument to show that were the animal bisexual it did not require to change its sex every year. Be this as it may, it appears to me that if we consider these various statements as referring to H. crocuta, the origin of all of them admits of a rational explanation. It might well be that the ignorant traders who trafficked with the natives of the interior of the African continent, observing that all, or at least the majority, of the Hyaenas which they encountered were apparently males, should have experienced some difficulty in accounting for the continuance of the species, and have had recourse to the view that each animal was bisexual. It is not improbable that, as Aristotle explains, this view |