53 



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usual rule and to extract Jerdon's description which is at page 145, 

 as follows : 



"TnE WILD DOG." 



"Description General color : bright, rusty, red or rufous fawn- 

 " color, paler beneath ; ears erect,'rather large, somewhat rounded at 

 " the tip ; tail moderately brushed reaching to the heels, usually tipped 

 " blackish ; limbs strong ; body lengthened. Length head and body 

 " 32 to 36 inches ; tail about 16 inches ; height 17 to 20 inches." 



But to return to my specimen of the wild dog " Evangeline," as 

 she is named, is certainly, although an interesting and rare creature 

 to have in a Museum .or wild-beast show, the most snarling, ill- 

 mannered and detestable beast I have ever owned. I have heard 

 of, but never seen, several cases of these animals running into 

 deer and wild hog, once of a buffalo having been killed by them. 



The excellent sportsman before mentioned, who gave me so 

 much information about tigers on the Neilgherry Hills tells me that 

 he thinks they run mute, giving as his reason for this opinion an 

 account of a chase he once saw when five wild dogs were trying to 

 run into two samber ; he said that they worked most systematically 

 two below, two behind, and one above the line of the deer, which 

 took them through several " sholas" as the hanging woods, and 

 copses on these hills are generally termed gradually, all the dogs, 

 except two fell off, a proof he inferred, and I think fairly, that 

 those on the scent ran mute, otherwise the rest of the pack would 

 have come to the cry. 



It is odd that the extraordinary stratagem mentioned at page 

 147 of Jerdon, should have been so widely believed. Williamson 

 says in his " Oriental Field Sports," that they thus kill tigers the 

 natives of Burmah believe that they use it to destroy wild elephants ; 

 and Doctor John Fryer in his account of East India and Bombainj 

 mentions amongst the " Wild Beast frequent there, are Wild Dogs, 

 " which they say thus Put out the Eyes of Venison as they feed in 

 11 the Woods, and so Venom them that they become their Prey." 



Williamson says that, having damped with the poison their tails 

 which they whisk in the eyes of the tiger until he is blinded, they 

 rush on him in a body and so destroy him ! He devotes to this sub 

 ject one of the Plates in his work just quoted, 



