CHAPTER VII 



NOTES ON WILD DOGS AND CHETAHS 



Wild dogs not very numerous — Hunt in packs — Attack herd of 

 buffaloes — First experience with wild dogs — Impala antelope 

 killed — Koodoo cow driven into shed — Koodoo driven to 

 waggon — Wild dogs not dangerous to human beings — Greatly 

 feared by all antelopes — Wild dog pursuing sable antelope — 

 Great pace displayed — Wild dogs capable of running down 

 every kind of African antelope — General opinion as to the 

 running powers of wild dogs — Curious incidents — Chasing wild 

 dogs with tame ones — One wild dog galloped over and shot — 

 Two others caught and worried by tame dogs — Wild dog 

 shamming dead — Clever escape — Chetahs overtaken on horse- 

 back — Three chetahs seen — Two females passed — Male 

 galloped down — A second chetah overtaken — Great speed of 

 trained Indian chetahs — Three chetah cubs found — Brought 

 up by bitch. 



I DO not think that the Cape hunting- dog {Lycaon 

 pictus) was ever very numerous in the interior of 

 South Africa, as at the time when I was elephant- 

 hunting, many years ago, and continually moving 

 about, day after day and year after year, in countries 

 where game was plentiful, I never encountered more 

 than two or three packs of these animals in a year s 

 wanderings, and there were several years — not 

 consecutive — during which I did not meet with any 

 at all. So far as my memory serves me, I think 

 that the wild dogs I came across — with the exception 

 of a single animal which was chasing a sable antelope 

 bull — were in packs of from fifteen to thirty. 



At times I have come across these animals lying 



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