234 



" Generally, however, he is too shy to approach inhabited build- 

 " ings. VAGRANT has written some interesting particulars about 

 " his "Evangeline." I saw the beast at the People's Park, and a 

 " more untameable wretch I never met with, and why so fair a 

 " name for such a savage deil, I know not.* 



" The wild dog does not throw his tongue when in chase. I 

 "have heard them make a tremulous kind of whimper, but 

 " whether it was a call or not I could not say ; they at times bark 

 " and howl at night, and I heard one not very long ago at Ooty. 

 " I am doubtful whether the wild dog does much harm to the 

 "jungle sheep. The little animal so seldom takes the open for any 

 " distance that I question his meeting with success in the chase of 

 " this active little deer. It is a generally accepted opinion, that 

 " where the wild dog hunts for any length of time, the deer quit 

 " that part of the country, completely driven away by them ; at 

 " any rate, vast tracts of the most likely ground, with everything 

 " to attract deer and to which they have been known to be partial, 

 "have been found deserted, not for a short time only, but for 

 " months, and even years. We know that antelope can be driven 

 " away from favorite localities by the too frequent use of the 

 " hunting cheetah. May it not be so too with the sambur and the 

 " wild dogs' incessent depredations ? The tiger does not cause it, 

 " for where deer resort, there will the tiger be some time or 

 " another. I remember once hearing a shikaree, on being ques- 

 " tioned how it happened, there were so many deer 'in a jungle 

 " from which a tiger had been moved, naively reply, " where there 

 " are rats you generally find the cat." 



" The wild dog has, I believe, hitherto been found to be quite 

 " untameable. It is strange how certain varieties of the canine 

 " species decline, if I may so put it, domestication. I have 

 " never heard of a tame wolf, hya?na,t or wild-dog ; yet the fox 

 " and the jackal become quite tame and domestic, running about 

 " the house and following their master just like a dog, though not 

 " displaying any great affection or fidelity to the hand that feeds 



* She is mentioned at page 53. Vagrant. 



t I have known three, if not four, cases of hyaenas becoming perfectly tame, 

 vide page 42. There was a very gentle specimen in 1868 in the Laul Bagh 

 Gardens at Bangalore, VAGRANT. 



