60 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLA Y 



less dholes sleeping and playing and scratching them- 

 selves among the little hollows and tussocks they 

 use for lairs/ This quotation sounds like an original 

 observation of the habits of the * dhole/ though it 

 may not be Mr Kipling's own experience. 



The 'field naturalist' does not seem to exist 

 in India ; and though the chroniclers of big-game 

 shooting occasionally meet the wild dogs, and have 

 described their method of hunting, the presence 

 of a pack is almost sufficient inducement to the 

 sportsman to leave a district where they appear. 

 ' They become a regular pest to the sportsman, 

 as well as to the natives,' writes General Douglas 

 Hamilton, in his Sport in Southern India, 'as they 

 drive away all the deer from the district ; the 

 sambur has the most intense dread of these poach- 

 ing rascals, and will leave a locality for months, 

 after being hunted by them.' General Hamilton 

 disturbed a small pack, and shot one dog as it 

 was 'leisurely walking up the slope of a hill.' This 

 dog 'had a wound all along its back, some days 

 old. It was seven inches long, and had opened 

 out two or three inches wide, and was evidently 

 a gore from a deer's antler.' This dog was exactly 

 four feet long, the tail being one foot. They were 

 constantly seen hunting sambur deer on the Annamully 

 hills. The country was open, but studded with 



