NOTES ON WILD DOGS, &c. 497 



naturalists, to disbelieve the native stories about tigers and wild 



dogs, and some of the stories are certainly incredible,* but these 



legends come down from old times when tigers were far more 



plentiful than they are now, and when the natives had very fall 



opportunities of observing the ways of wild beasts. Besides, though 



wild dogs are extremely shy and timid in the presence of man, they 



are terribly fierce by nature also, and we know that individually timid 



species of the lower animals will often display great daring when 



mutually encouraged and acting in a flock or pack. And is it not 



an error to suppose (as is often done) that among the four-footed, as 



among the human denizens of the jungles, there is that overpowering 



awe of the tiger that civilised man — more imaginative than they — is 



sometimes disposed to feel ? For my own part, I can well believe that 



a pack of these agile dogs could give even a full-grown tiger, when 



either recently gorged or else weakened by hunger, an exceedingly 



bad time of it, especially if they worried him day after day for 



several days under the hot sun, as they are said to do. Nor are all 



tigers alike in strength. There may be the mangy old toothless 



tiger on his last legs, growing weaker and dimmer-eyed as the days 



pass by ; in fact dying 



as slow 

 As the morning mists down the hill that go j 



such a tiger as he would have a bad chance against a dozen of these 

 red demons snatching at his flanks ! And, again, there may be the 

 perky and inquisitive cub (whose mother does not know that he 

 is out), when the wild pack meet with him in a lonely place, is he 

 not likely to pay for his desire of ** seeing life " by losing it ? 



Certainly with regard to the tiger in his full vigour, " burning 

 bright in the forests of the night," — I confess to a liberal disbelief 

 of the native legends myself. The oriental imagination is undoubt- 

 edly too luxuriant at times, and we must allow a discount accord- 

 ingly. But on a view of the whole matter, I incline to think that 

 there is or was a very large substratum of fact to the native stories, 

 wonderfully circumstantial and widespread as they are, of the 

 prowess of the wild red dogs against the tiger. '' Why should I 

 shoot the wild dog ? " said the patel of a jungle- village to me once ; 

 ''he is my god : he kills the tigers that take my cows !" And this 



represents the universal belief among the wilder tribes of India, 



* For example, the extraordinary belief stated further on in a quotation from 

 Moles worth's Marathi Dictionary, 



