NOTES ON WILD DOCiS, ,fc. 507 



These wild dogs are now very abundant along that range of hilly 

 jungle east of Baroda, from Pawagarh through Cbhota Udepur, 

 Rajpipla, Sagb^ra, and the Surat and Baroda districts along the 

 Tapti. I remember seeing a pair of pups in captivity at Chhota 

 Udepur, about seven years ago ; there was a pack said to number 

 fifteen about Champanir in March last, and they had cleared out the 

 game too ; and I or my men saw or heard of at least half a dozen 

 packs in the Baroda jungles of the Tapti Valley last month. They 

 are exterminating the samhur ; we came on the remains of two hinds 

 that had been recently killed by them, and over mountains where 

 three years ago I had seen twenty-five or thirty samhur, I only saw 

 three this time, and round pools where in former years the tracks 

 of samhur were innumerable we scarcely saw a footprint. The 

 wild pig are still plentiful, but seem to have packed into big- 

 sounders for safety. I saw one sounder that had more than forty 

 pig in it — they made a tremendous clatter as they scampered into 

 the jungle from the fields in the grey dawn . The boars thereabouts 

 seem to grow fine tushes : here is a pair that measure fully 9| 

 inches. My men said they had taken them from the remains 

 of a boar that had been recently killed by a tiger. The recent 

 killing I admit : the village shikari's matchlock was, I suspect, the 

 cause of death. Besides I examined the skins of both the tigers 

 that resided in that neighbourhood, and could find no traces of any 

 recent conflict with the scythe-tusked boar. It is permitted some- 

 times here for us to mingle tales of the chase with more serious 

 matters of natural history, and I ask to be allowed to spin out this 

 paper with a few extracts from my diary for May, 1892. 



On the third of May, at 1-30 o'clock, hhuhber of a tiger came in 

 from a village about five miles from my camp. I set off at once, with 

 four followers, carrying the usual paraphernalia of guns, camera, 

 chagul, a rope for climbing into trees, &c. About a mile bej'^ond the 

 village I met three of the chief trackers — sportsmen all of them — • 

 with rusty matchlocks, and bamboo props for resting those antiquated 

 bits of gas-pipe on while taking aim. The leader said that three 

 other men were on the look-out, and that the tiger was asleep 

 in a chimpi (clump of bamboos) on a hillside, and was 

 quite unconscious of the attentions that were being lavished 



