260 SHIKAR SKETCHES. 



avail myself of it. He says, ' The general colour 

 is bright rusty red or rufous fawn paler be- 

 neath; tail moderately brushed, reaching to the 

 heels, usually tipped blackish : limbs strong : body 

 lengthened head and body thirty-two to thirty- 

 six inches : tail about sixteen inches : height, 

 seventeen to twenty inches.' 



The wild dog is, I believe, pretty evenly dis- 

 tributed amongst the large forest tracts that 

 abound in India, and are often a cause of consid- 

 erable annoyance to the sportsmen, owing to the 

 way they harry the game he is in pursuit of, ren- 

 dering it wild, and more than usually unap- 

 proachable. 



They generally hunt in packs from five to 

 twenty, and run by scent as well as by sight, 

 and their strength, speed, and endurance render 

 them formidable foes to all the deer tribe. I 

 never succeeded in bagging one myself, but have 

 come across them on two or three occasions in 

 the jungles of Berar and in the Chanda District. 

 My friend Lieutenant-Colonel Hebbert shot a 

 very fine specimen when I was with him at a 

 place called Daba (alluded to in a former chap- 

 ter), and I once had a shot at them, but missed. 



I was out one morning taking a stroll with 

 my rifle, when my attention was attracted by a 

 low sort of whimper, and, looking round, I saw 



