378 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



DOGS FOR INDIAN HUNTING. 



JACKAL-HUNTING WITH FOX-HOUNDS — GREYHOUNDS— FOX AND HARE COURSING — A FOOT- 

 PACK IN DACCA — DOGS FOR HUNTING FORMIDABLE GAME — SIR SAMUEL BAKER'S 

 SPORT IN CEYLON — BULL-DOGS FOR HUNTING BEARS, BISON, BUFFALOES, ETC. — CON- 

 STITUTION OF A PACE — INCIDENTS IN LARGE-GAME HUNTING WITH DOGS — MY FIRST 

 ATTEMPT — THE PACK SEIZE A BEAR — ANOTHER BEAR-HUNT — OBLIGED TO SHOOT THE 

 BEAR — DAMAGE SUSTAINED BY THE PACK — A BISON-HUNT— BILL SYKES — MOTTO FOR 

 SEIZERS — THE DOGS ARE ALMOST CHOKED — THE PACK SEIZE A YOUNG ELEPHANT — 

 A COMMEMORATION DINNER — BILL SYKES DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF SINGLE-HANDED — 

 FIGHT WITH A PANTHER — OBJECTION TO SPIKED COLLARS FOR HUNTING DOGS. 



IN a few Indian stations the European residents keep packs of imported 

 fox-hounds for hunting jackals. The sport is not of a high order, but 

 it affords a morning gallop before the sun gets high. A few greyhounds 

 are kept where the country is feasible for coursing foxes and hares. The 

 Indian fox (Vtdpcs beagalensis) is a very different little animal to its English 

 congener, being more grey in colour, weighing only seven or eight pounds, 

 and living almost exclusively in open plains, where it has numerous burrows. 

 Owing to the latter circumstance, little sport can be had with it with fox- 

 hounds, but when surprised at a distance from its retreat a good course can 

 be had with Arab or English greyhounds. It doubles with astonishing 

 quickness and dexterity, and trusts more to eluding its pursuers by this 

 means than by straight running. In Dacca (Eastern Bengal) we used to 

 have excellent fun with the bdgdos, or large civet-cat (Vivera zibetha), an 

 animal weighing about twenty-five pounds. Two friends and myself kept 

 a small pack of nondescript dogs, mostly half-bred terriers and spaniels, for 

 hunting it. The bdgdos is much like a badger in general appearance. It 

 is not fast, and therefore does not often trust itself to open ground, but 

 dodges from one patch of tangled grass and briers to another. It also 

 climbs low trees, goes to ground, and takes to water freely, as means of 



