The spotted hyena, _Felis chaus_ (_Canis crocuta_ of Linnaeus), is an Egyptian animal, inhabiting principally the hills on the western side of the Nile.

In appearance it is like a large cat, with a tuft of long black hair at the extremities of its ears--a feature which it has in common with the lynx.
Among the rarer birds of the Empire may be mentioned the ostrich, which occurred in Mesopotamia; parrots, which were found in Cabul and the Punjab; ibises, which abounded in Egypt, and in the Delta of the Indus, the great vulture (Vultur cinereus), which inhabited the Taurus, the Indian owl (_Athena Indica_), the spoonbill (_Platalea nudifrons_); the benno (_Ardea bubulcus_), and the sicsac (_Charadrius melanocephalus_).
The most valuable of the fish belonging to the Persian seas and rivers were the pearl oyster of the Gulf, and the murex of the Mediterranean, which furnished the famous purple dye of Tyre.

After these may be placed the sturgeon and sterlet of the Caspian, the silurus of the Sea of Aral, the Aleppo eel, and the palla, a small but excellent fish, which is captured in the Indus during the flood season.

The Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, as we have seen, were visited by whales; dolphins, porpoises, cod, and mullet abounded in the same seas; the large rivers generally contained barbel and carp; while some of them, together with many of the smaller streams, supplied trout of a good flavor.

The Nile had some curious fish peculiar to itself, as the oxyrinchus, the lepidotus, the Perca Nilotica, the Silurus Schilbe Niloticus, the Silurus carmuth and others.