ANIMAL RENEGADES. x 6i 



tion of independence. In Eastern Europe, Southwest- 

 ern Asia, and the Southern prairies of our own continent, 

 millions of animals have permanently renounced their 

 allegiance to the lord of creation. Wild dogs are not 

 confined to the suburbs of Stamboul ; legions of them 

 infest the mountain-ranges of Armenia, Persia, and 

 Turkestan, and prowl over the vast table-lands between 

 Asia Minor and Northwestern India. They are found 

 in the deserts of all intertropical countries ; in America, 

 especially on the arid plateaus of Peru, Paraguay, and 

 Western Mexico. In Mexico and South America there 

 are about sixty millions of wild horses and horned cattle 

 whose freedom is bounded only by the limits of their 

 speed. The Cabras pardas of the Sierra Madre are 

 descendants of the Spanish goat, but as shy as big- 

 horn sheep and nearly as hard to shoot. In all our 

 Southwestern States there are utterly wild hogs, deni- 

 zens of the river-jungle, and unapproachably shy. At 

 the sight of a dog they stampede with snorts of horror 

 and hide in swamps where few hunters dare to follow 

 them, though the chase is perfectly legitimate. Their 

 favorite haunts are the South-Georgian cypress-swamps ; 

 sporadically they are found as far north as Pamunkey 

 Bay in old Virginia. The German hunters distinguish 

 the Wild-Katrc from the somewhat smaller Feld-Katze, 

 the former the genuine wild-cat, the latter one-fifth 

 smaller, and often with the fine fur of the ancestral 

 tabby, but with all the fierceness of the genuine Felts 



