THE INDIAN WILL DOG. 



147 



savage fight I ever witnessed. One or two wretched curs limped away from the strife, torn and 

 lacerated probably to lie down and die. This canine community-fierce, hungry, and diseased-^ 

 must surely be one of those many Buddhist hells where sorcerers expiate their crimes. The animals 

 to be animated by the spirits of the departed, and are undergoing a lifetime of torture 

 The priests, if they are good men, look on at their misery with pious complacency, and probably take the 

 lesson to heart, lest they, too, in the next stage of their existence, should be condemned to howl for 

 offal or garbage to satisfy the hungry pangs and sore-eaten frames of starving Pariah Dogs." 



THE INDIAN WILD DOG.* 



This animal, which exists in large numbers all over the peninsulas of India and Malacca, differs 

 so much from the ordinary Dogs, that it has been proposed to separate it from them under a different 

 generic name, Cuon. Its distinctive characters are, however, by no means sufficiently great to warrant 

 this separation. It occurs, under slightly different varieties, in different parts of India, and receives 

 various native names. By the Mahrattas it is called Kolsun (Canis dukhunensis of Colonel Sykes) ; 

 Sona Jcuta, or Golden Dog, in Central India ; Buansti in the Himalayas; Dhole in Ceylon, and so on. 



A capital notion of the appearance of this interesting Dog may be obtained from a case of stuffed 

 specimens now in the India Museum at South Kensington. The Zoological Society has at different 



* Canis primcewu. 



