148 CANID^. 



months' confinement they were as wild and shy as at the first hour I got 

 them. Their eyes emitted a strong light in the dark, and their bodies 

 had the peculiar fetid odour of the fox and jackal in all its rankness. 

 They were very silent, never uttering an audible sound save when fed, 

 at which time they would snarl in subdued tone at each other, but never 

 fight, nor did they on any occasion show any signs of quarrelsomeness 

 or pugnacity." 



Mr. Elliot has the following remarks on this species : — The " wild dog 

 was not known in the Southern Mahratta country until of late years. It 

 has now become very common. The circumstance of their attacking 

 in a body and killing the tiger is universally believed by the natives. 

 Instances of their killing the wild boar, and of tigers leaving a jungle in 

 which a pack of wild dogs had taken up their quarters, have come to 

 my own knowledge, and on one occasion a party of the officers of the 

 18th M. N. I, saw a pack run into and kill a large samber stag [Rusa) 

 near Dharwar. I once captured a bitch and seven cubs of this species, 

 and had them alive for some time." 



I have come across the wild dog myself on several occasions, in 

 Malabar, the VVynaad, at the foot of the Ajunteh Ghat in Kandeish, 

 near Saugor, on the Neelgherries, &c. &c. It may be said to inhabit 

 the whole of India where sufliciently wooded to supply it with suitable 

 game. The pack I saw at Ajunteh had just run down a full-grown 

 female samber, which our followers at once appropriated. In lower 

 Malabar I came suddenly on a pack that had just killed a tame female 

 buffalo. It was much worried about the throat, and had in the agonies 

 of death given birth to a foetus a few months old. This is the only 

 instance I have heard of in the south of India of cattle being killed by 

 them ; but in the north they are said often to kill calves. 



The bitch has twelve to fourteen teats, and has at least six whelps 

 at a birth. They breed from January to March. Colonel Markham 

 mentions that a breeding-place was discovered by Mr. Wilson, near 

 Simla, in holes under rocks, several females apparently breeding together. 

 At this time it appears that they endeavour to hunt their game and kill 

 it as near their den as possible. I entirely disbelieve the native story 

 of their capturing their prey through the acridity of their urine. 



The wild dog is common in Ceylon, where it is called the Dhole by some, 

 by which name it has been treated of by Hamilton Smith and other writers, 

 and it is found over all the jungles of Assam, Burmah, the Malayan penin- 

 sula, and the larger islands. Hodg.'^on assorts that it extends into Tibet. 



