170 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



met his fate in the form of a Lorraine poacher, who had 

 seen him in the woods and who availed himself of that 

 first chance to use his rifle upon legitimate game. 



In a sparsely settled but tolerably fertile country 

 animal refugees soon accustom themselves to the vicis- 

 situdes of their wild life. The ten months' drought of 

 1877, which almost exterminated the domestic cattle of 

 Southern Brazil, was braved by the pampa cows, whom 

 experience had taught to derive their water-supply 

 from bulbous roots, cactus-leaves, and excavations in 

 the moist river-sand. Solid food is only a secondary 

 requirement; with a good supply of drinking-water 

 many animals would beat Dr. Tanner's time. But how 

 the Syrian Khamr dogs manage to make out a living 

 only the gods of the desert know. They rough it in 

 regions where no human hunter would discover a trace 

 of game and where water is as scarce as in the eternal 

 abode of Dives ; nay, they multiply, for the Khamr 

 bitch, like other poor mothers, is generally overblest 

 with progeny : six youngsters a year is said to be the 

 minimum. A sausage-maker would probably decline to 

 invest in Khamr dogs : the word leanness does not begin 

 to describe their physical condition ; strappedness would 

 be more to the purpose, if an Arkansas adjective admits 

 of that suffix, — skin and sinews tightly strapped over a 

 framework of bones. I saw their relatives in Dalmatia, 

 and often wondered that they did not rattle when they 

 ran ; but Dalmatia is still a country of vineyards and 



