POACHERS AND NUISANCES 



been run down and eaten, all the game leaves the 

 vicinity ; and even the tiger his food supply 

 having moved off is also forced to take his 

 departure. 



The wild dog attacks the flank of its quarry with 

 the object of disembowelling it, and should the 

 victim be a male, the testes are also a favourite 

 point d'appui. Terrible, indeed, is the destruction 

 of game by these scourges, and considering that 

 the bitch gives birth to half a dozen pups in each 

 litter, while, so far as I am aware, nature has 

 imposed no limit whatsoever, except that of food 

 supply, upon the increase of this most pernicious 

 animal, it is high time that the Government should 

 offer for the destruction of each wild dog, a reward 

 sufficiently tempting to induce native poachers 

 to turn their natural ingenuity into a legitimate 

 and useful channel. The giving of rewards for 

 killing tigers, panthers, wolves, etc., might well 

 be discontinued, and a good price set instead upon 

 the head of the wild dog. I have never known 

 a case of man being attacked by these animals, 

 but two instances in which their demeanour 

 towards him has been uncomfortably contemptuous 

 and menacing have come within my knowledge. 

 In one of these a very experienced and intrepid 

 English sportsman, Colonel G., of the Mysore 

 Revenue Survey, who was alone, and with no 

 other cartridges besides the two in his gun, and 

 in the other a horse-keeper of my own, who, with 

 another native, was conducting my pony along a 

 path through the forest, were respectively much 



35' 



