VILLAGE CURS. 45 



ic told me tliat whilst below he had seen a surrow. As I 

 liidl have more to say about this curious animal hereafter, I 

 hall now merely describe its appearance as being something 

 )( 'tween a donkey and a big billy-goat, with short black horns. 

 \\'c returned rather early, as I intended to organise a drive 

 nr the jurrow, which I felt sure was lying wounded some- 

 ,vlicre in the wood into which we had tracked it. 



We beat up for volunteers in the neighbourhood, and soon 

 i;ul enough of willing hands for our purpose. The village 

 l()<^s of all sorts and sizes were also, at Baloo Mar's advice, 

 init into requisition. Some of these mongrel curs, queer as 

 hoy looked, were quite up to the business on hand, for the 

 villagers often use them for hunting down jurrow, especially 

 luring winter, after severe snowstorms, when these heavy 

 leer, from being unable to travel fast in the deep snow, are 

 asily driven down to the foot of some deep gorge, and there 

 mobbed by their pursuers, who despatch them wholesale, re- 

 i^iirdless of sex or size, with axes, sticks, and stones, in default 

 of better weapons. Although the hill villager never loses an 

 opportunity of killing jurrow in defence of his crops as well 

 as for food, they have an equally inveterate foe, in common 

 with most Himalayan game-animals, in the wild dog, Cuon 

 rutilans of natural history. The " bhowsa," as it is here called, 

 usually hunts in smaller or larger companies, and will follow 

 its prey with most deadly pertinacity and cunning manoeuvr- 

 ing, until the whole pack closes round its devoted quarry, of 

 which it makes short work. Even the striped king of the 

 forest is said to dread the presence of the bhowsa on his 

 domain. Should the hunter find that a pack of wild dogs 

 has been sharing the sport in the same locality with him, 

 he may as well strike his tent and make for other ground. 

 But we shall now see what the more domestic members of 

 the canine family can do in the same line of business. 



Having mustered our small army of bipeds and quadru- 

 peds, we started for the wood, which soon rang with shouts 

 and whistles as the line beat through it. On getting about 



