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" When at the Avalauche a few months back, I was one morning 

 " panting up that terribly steep hill behind the bungalow, I met a 

 " hind and fawn bustling down the side of the hill in a desperate 

 " hurry, with all their hair standing on end ; and yet, as I was to 

 " leeward and there being nothing to alarm them that I could see, 

 " I was puzzled at their behaviour ; but the cause was not far off, 

 " for on reaching the point from which they had come, I met three 

 " wild dogs in chase, and I am sorry to add, made a disgraceful 

 " miss at the biggest of the lot. At the same place one morning, 

 " a fellow-sportsman, in wandering over the range of low hills 

 " along the course of the river, came upon a track of where a deer 

 "had passed at speed down towards the water, and further on 

 " descried a wild dog on the bank which, on being fired at, made 

 " tracks, followed by three or four others.* On going down there 

 " was a hind in a shallow of the stream, her belly torn open, and a 

 " calf near its birth, half-eaten, and a portion of the old hind also 

 " devoured. The deer was scarcely cold ; she had apparently been 

 " unable to reach the deep pool a little further down stream, where 

 " she might have held her enemies at bay. The state of the 

 "animal, with her flanks all torn, confirms the idea that the 

 " attacks of the dogs are confined to that part of the body, which 

 " is so vulnerable, the skin being so much more easily torn when 

 " the animal is at speed than when not in motion. This is 

 " exemplified by the ease with which the spear-blade enters a hog 

 " when running away from you, and the difficulty, (unless very 

 " sharp) when the animal is down. In the former case it is 

 " described as like " putting a hot knife into a pat of butter." The 

 " wild dog is not over-particular as to his food being venison. He 

 " takes kindly, as we know to our cost, to kid or goat, and like his 

 " distant relation, the fox of Europe, would not, I dare say, object 

 " to rob the roost, thinking, perhaps as the sick Reynard in 

 " JEsop's fables did, that " a chicken too might do him good."f 



* Within a few hundred yards of this spot 1 found the remains of another 

 fine aamber pulled down by these pests. VAGRANT. 



t A live fowl was the greatest treat I could give Evangeline who disposed of 

 it, feathers included, with incredible rapidity, leaving nothing but feet and 

 beak. She was so eager on these occasions that she even neglected to try to 

 bite her feeder, an attention she always offered at every other meal. VAGRANT. 



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