198 THE FOX 



who has hunted a pack knows how much easier it is 

 to handle a successful foxhound than an unsuccessful 

 one. But after all hounds are few in India, and 

 jackals are not often disturbed. Like foxes, they 

 soon find out where they are protected, and in the 

 public gardens they are numerous and bold. 



Nearly every cantonment has its company ' bagh,' 

 part of which is used by the officers, civil and military, 

 and their wives as a meeting-place and playground ; 

 and here the jackals lurk in numbers. I have often 

 seen them slinking back to the gardens at Lahore. 

 But the neighbourhood of a town has a corrupting 

 effect on jackals. They become cunning, eaters of 

 offal, spiritless brutes, and are far less bold than those 

 of their brethren who live in the open and hunt 

 in the jungle. They are like the pigstye, back-yard 

 haunting foxes of some parts of our midland hunts, 

 animals as easy to find as they are hard to kill, and 

 impossible to make run. Nevertheless, in a well- 

 hunted country the jackal affords sport, and the reason 

 why it is often not so good as it might be, is that 

 few people are willing to give the time and trouble 

 necessary to keep hounds in India in sufficiently hard 

 condition to enable them to tackle a stout old dog 

 jackal. Like other animals that hunt by night the 

 jackal has a keen sense of smell, and when the pack 



