EGYPTIAN STREET-DOG. 179 



of admiration, and of a more admissible service. 

 The dogs of this class are now a gaunt and ill-look- 

 ing race, bearing the external appearance of the 

 greyhound disfigured by the intermixture of cur, 

 sheep-dog, or other blood, but still usually with the 

 livery of his origin, being mostly of a yellow and 

 white colour. The Lurcher now makes occasionally 

 great havoc among sheep and deer, and acquires 

 the wild scent of game. Sometimes these dogs be- 

 come feral, when their owners happen to be captured 

 and imprisoned. They have been regularly hunted 

 with hounds, but seldom destroyed, because when 

 the chase came up with them, the pack seemed to 

 be surprised at only finding that it was a dog it 

 had followed. At other times, however, when a 

 lurcher had snapped up, or attacked the game the 

 pack was hunting, the dogs on coming up have torn 

 him to pieces as if he had been a wild beast. 



The Egyptian Street-dog^ probably the Keleb of 

 antiquity, properly so called. It may be assumed, 

 that the Pariahs of Egyptian towns are among the 

 most ancient breeds ; and though now degraded in 

 many respects by mange, famine, and intermixture 

 perhaps with the jackal, there are still numbers 

 retaining marks of antique piurity of blood, evidently 

 referrible to the Akaba greyhound of the present 

 time. They are not all even at this moment totally 

 deprived of hair, many being sandy or bufi-coloured ; 

 and they possess, in a singular degree, a self-taught 

 system of avoiding contact with the Moslem, and of 

 order and watching, that deserves attention ; for in. 



