78 THE DOG TRIBE IN GENEHAL. 



they sleep, for the most part, during the day, is- 

 suing at the close of evening to prowl about for 

 plunder. They are, in general, extremely nauseous 

 in their feeding, preferring bodies which they hap- 

 pen to find exposed, or which they are able to un- 

 earth, even in the most putrid state, to fresh and 

 recently killed food. By these disgusting manners, 

 however,, in hot climates, they are greatly instru- 

 mental to the health of mankind. They thus pre- 

 vent the air from being impregnated with noxious 

 effluvia., arising from multitudes of bodies that 

 would otherwise be left on the earth to corrupt, 

 and to spread around them diseases and death. 



The females of the most fertile species produce 

 from six to ten young ones at a litter. These are 

 all blind, and in other respects are not perfectly 

 formed, at their birth. Most of the animals attain 

 their full size, and arrive at maturity, in about two 

 years ; and the general duration of their lives seems 

 to be from fourteen to twenty years. 





THE 



