238 MAMMALIA OF INDIA. 
Nerka, Gondi; Shingal or Sjekal, Persia; Amu, Bhotia; Myae-khawae, 
Burmese ; JVareeah, Singhalese. 
Hasirat.—Throughout India, Burmah, and Ceylon; it is found over 
a great part of Asia, Southern Europe, and Northern Africa. 
DEscrRIPTION.—“ Fur dusky yellowish or rufous grey, the hairs being 
mottled black, grey, and brown, with the under fur brownish yellow ; 
lower parts yellowish-grey ; the tail reddish-brown, ending in a darkish 
tuft; more or less rufous on the muzzle and limbs; tail moderately 
hairy.” —/erdon. 
S1ze.—Head and body, 28 to 30 inches; tail, ro or 11 inches ; height, 
16 to 18 inches. 
The jackal is one of our best-known animals, both as a prowler and 
scavenger, in which capacity he is useful, and as a disturber of our mid- 
night rest by his diabolical yells, in which peculiarity he is to be looked 
upon as an unmitigated nuisance. 
He is mischievous too occasionally, and will commit havoc amongst 
poultry and young kids and lambs, but, as a general rule, he is a harm- 
less, timid creature, and when animal food fails he will take readily to 
vegetables. Indian corn seems to be one of the things chiefly affected 
. by him ; the fruit of the wild behr-tree (Zizyphus jujuba) is another, as I 
have personally witnessed. In Ceylon he is said to devour large 
quantities of ripe coffee-berries, the seeds, which pass through entire, 
are carefully gathered by the coolies, who get an extra fee for the labour, 
and are found to be the best for germination, as the animal picks the 
finest fruit. According to Sykes he devastates the vineyards in the 
west of India, and is said to be partial to sugar-cane. ‘The jackal is 
credited with digging corpses out of the shallow graves, and devouring 
bodies. I once came across the body of a child in the vicinity of a 
jungle village which had been unearthed by one. At Seonee we had, at 
one time, a plague of mad jackals, which did much damage. Sir Emerson 
Tennent writes of a curious horn or excrescence which grows on the 
head of the jackal occasionally, which is regarded by the Singhalese as 
a potent charm, by the instrumentality of which every wish canbe 
realised, and stolen property will return of its own accord! This horn, 
which is called JVari-comboo, is said to grow only on the head of the 
leader of the pack. 
The domestic dog is supposed to owe its origin to this species, as 
well as to the wolf, but all conjecture on this point can be but pure 
speculation. Certain it is that the pariahs about villages are strikingly 
like jackals, at least in many cases, and they will freely interbreed. 
The writer in the Zvdia Sporting Review alluded to by me in writing 
of the wolf, mentions some experiments made in crossing dogs with 
jackals. “First cross, hybrid between a female jackal and Scotch 
terrier dog, or half jackal and half dog ; second cross, between the hybrid 
