202 THE DOG TRIBE. 



gregarious by their own nature, but dogs are not. What ! dogs 

 not gregarious, when we see packs of them in the hunting-grounds ; 

 and when we read of congregated dogs, and their cousins the wolves, 

 tearing unfortunate travellers to pieces, and eating them up ; are 

 these dogs not gregarious ? No not in the true sense of the word. 



I hold it as a maxim (whatever naturalists may think to the 

 contrary), that all herbaceous animals are gregarious, but that 

 carnivorous ones do not come under that denomination. 



Packs of hounds are artificial, being entirely the work of civilised 

 man ; and as man is endowed with reason, he has it in his power to 

 supply these assembled dogs with food. But supposing these dogs 

 had neither food nor commander. In their hunger they would 

 worry the flocks and fight for the plunder, and when the flocks 

 were all destroyed, each dog would take off in a separate direction 

 for something more to eat. 



But this is not the case with herbaceous animals. Their food is 

 always before them. Each individual can have as much to eat as his 

 companion, and we never see them quarrelling for a choice morsel, as 

 they wend their way through boundless tracks of pasturage. Hence, 

 the cattle tribe can assemble in flocks, and graze the plain, unmo- 

 lested by each other, whilst the dog would not be safe from the fangs 

 of his own father, over the first shoulder of mutton which lay on the 

 ground under their noses. 



I have heard and read much of dogs and wolves hunting in packs, 

 but believe it not. The very appetite of a dog constitutes it a 

 solitary animal in its wild state. Let me ask the question how 

 could a wild dog hunt for food in company, with any chance of 

 sufficient profit to itself? Fancy a pack of them, in full cry, after 

 a zebra in Africa. The zebra is overpowered by them, and down it 

 falls. First come, first served. The strongest and the fleetest get all 

 all is consumed before the slow and the weak members of the pack 

 can get up. There is nothing for them that day pretty encourage- 

 ment, forsooth, in a new hunting expedition on the morrow. But 

 where is the sojourn of ever barking, growling, and carnivorous dogs 

 in the forest ? Will antelopes, and kine, and wild asses remain in a 

 neighbourhood infested by such an assemblage of quarreling quad- 

 rupeds ? No doubt they would retire far away for self-preservation ; 



