406 Colonel Syxxs’s Description of the 
primitive race. The fur of the Dingo is composed of silky and woolly hairs, 
and is of a deep yellowish brown colour, lighter on the under part of the 
body ; it is about two feet six inches long, and two feet high. 
It will be observed, that in the above distinguished works, descriptions 
are given of only two varieties of wild dogs: those of Ceylon, and those of 
India and Southern Africa. 
I have deemed it necessary to preface my description with the above 
extracts, to facilitate comparison, and the estimate of the truth of the 
inference I have drawn, that the Wild Dog of the Western Ghats is hitherto 
an undescribed species. 
In the afternoon of the 15th of May 1828, when encamped at Bhima 
Shancar, the source of the Bhima River, in the Western Ghats, some of the 
Cohié inhabitants of the village, who had been in my employ for some days 
hunting game, brought to me the Wild Dog, of which the accompanying 
is a drawing ;* they called it Colsun. The creature was dead, but still 
warm ; they stated that they had followed a pack of them in the morning, 
through the dense jungle, and ultimately coming unawares upon them, 
had struck down the dog they brought by a blow on the head with a stick, 
the creature not having activity sufficient to effect its escape. We were 
enabled to account for this inactivity on opening the stomach, by finding 
that the dog had completely gorged itself with the remains of a deer; and 
the bones of the feet of some digitate animal were also in the stomach. As 
it lay dead on the ground, its principal characteristics were : Ist, the length 
and narrowness of the head, the parietal bones insensibly approaching each 
other, and the jaws being considerably elongated ; 2dly, the length and slen- 
derness of the body ; 3dly, the magnitude and strength of the limbs com- 
pared with those of other dogs of nearly the same size as the Wild Dog, and 
with the body of the dog itself; 4thly, the length of the neck; 5Sthly, 
the magnitude of the feet and toes. The expression of the face was 
that of a coarse ill-humoured pariah dog. The pupils of the eyes were 
round (the irides brown), ears large, erect, broad above and somewhat 
rounded at the tips, interior surface of the ears hairy, and the hairs whitish. 
The posterior margin of the ear has a lobe, fissure, or double edge, as in 
the domestic dog. ‘The fore feet have five toes, and there is an elevated, 
rounded, horny process behind the articulation of the wrist, as in the Shaka, 
* See the acompanying Plate. 
