529 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 
No, L—A WILD DOG’S EARTH. 
( With a Plate. ) 
At the end ‘of December, 1898, I found myself in the Gagamul Forest in 
the Berars, and onthe 27th of that month I was stalking along the slopes 
of the lower hills, looking for Samber, J had just ascended the steep side 
of a ravine, and, as we topped the ridge, my shikari said he saw a tiger on 
the opposite side of the next nullah. About 80 yards off, just below the 
sky line of the next ridge, there was certainly a yellow animal sitting in 
the grass. The rising sun was in my eyes, and the: long grass prevented me 
from being sure what it was, though J could see it was not a deer; I fired, 
the smoke hung in the morning air, and when it cleared away, nothing was 
visible. I crossed the nullah higher up and came down the ridge so as to 
have the advantage of being on higher ground, When I had got within 
15 yards of the place, a wild dog bolted out of the ground at my feet and 
was out of sight, down the ravine,ina moment. I found a patch of blood 
where the animal I had fired at had been sitting, and as the grass there was 
laid flat in a large circle, there seemed to be every chance of it being a tiger, 
The ground was too hard to show any footprints, Following the blood, 
of which there was plenty, for about 100 yards, I walked on toa wild deg 
lying dead shot through the middle of the body. I found that he had not 
eaten anything for several days, as his stomach was empty, A handful of 
Samber hair in the intestine showed that his last meal was Samber, “The 
dog was amale, Ue measured in length 513 inches, of . which the tail was 
17 inches, height 213 inches, The teeth were worn with age. I then 
returned to the spot where the other dog had come out of the ground, and 
found a large hole. Isuspected that there might be young ones, but could 
not hear them or see any signs of such being the case. Three days after- 
wards, on the 20th, I returned with pickaxes and spades, and walked very 
quietly up to thehole. AsI gotin front of it, the dog appeared at the 
bottom of the hole and at once went back out of sight. I called to one of 
my men to throw his blanket over the hole, but immediately the dog shot 
out and got a bullet in the chest, falling dead just clear of the mouth of 
the hole. She was in milk, but did not appear to have had puppies recently. 
We then turned our attention to the hole, and found it descended at an 
angle of 45° into the hill for about 4 feetand then turned at right-angles 
sharp tothe right, Wedug down about 6 feet from the turn, and reached 
the bottom of the tunnel, 3 feet 6 inches from the surface, without hearing 
or seeing anything of the pupyzies. In the meanwhile, I discovered a small 
hole, of 4 inches only in diameter, about 16 feet from the big hole. On open- 
ing this up it descended at an angle of 60°,and communicated with the tun- 
nel ; in fact, at the bottom of it there was an enlarged space at the end of the 
tunnel, in which were lying 5 puppies. The small hole was evidently for 
