THE JACKALS. 207 



and for the same reason we apply it to the present 

 form of minor gregarious canines.* By separating 

 our group of Thous from the true Jackals, much 

 confusion in the discrepancies of size, manners, 

 and colours, is removed; and as the former are 

 unquestionably the ancient occupants to whom the 

 oldest authors refer, we find that there is no distinct 

 proof of the Jackal or Chakal being abundant in 

 Asia Minor during the earlier classical ages : there 

 is not even sufficient to show the existence of the 

 species in Western Asia before the Macedonian 

 invasion of Persia. At the present time it is, ac- 

 cording to Ruppel, still a stranger to Egypt ; and 

 had a creature so notoriously unpleasant been com- 

 mon, some one of the very numerous writers of 

 those regions would have noticed it in a manner 

 not to be mistaken. It may be, that one of the 

 smaller Tlioes of Aristotle is the true Jackal ; and 

 he may have first obtained a knowledge of the 

 animal by means of his correspondence in Alex- 

 anders army. Pliny mixed it up with his Thoes ; 

 and in the Scriptures, if noticed at all, the animal 

 is not distinguishable from other canines. Had it 

 been common, the epithets of warner or howler^ 

 the two most striking characteristics of the group, 

 could have hardly escaped forming similies in the 

 picturesque and magnificent denunciations of the 



* Gesner contends that Papio was the classical name of the 

 Jackal : this word may be of barbarous origin, and it is also 

 clear that the ancients miderstood a four-handed animal by it ; 

 probably an ape or a baboon. 



