THE HUNTING DOG 211 



perienced, by cantering quietly along after the 

 game on a serviceable pony, not pushing yovu" beast 

 at all, it will be found that before any great dis- 

 tance has been covered, you are not very far 

 behind. These are precisely the tactics of the 

 hunting dog. After a while, as his distressed and 

 fleeing quarry grows breathless and exhausted, 

 the pack closes up, and then, in turn, its com- 

 ponent members make a dash forward, sprinting 

 up to the side of the wretched, panting antelope. 

 They now, one by one, leap up at the fleeing wild 

 thing, inflicting with their teeth the most ap- 

 palling wounds and gashes, and tearing out great 

 mouthfuls of flesh and entrails, until at length 

 agony, exhaustion, and loss of blood tell, and the 

 poor beast falls and is quickly disposed of. The 

 numbers of antelopes killed in a given time by 

 hunting dogs must be enormous, since their un- 

 tiringly active life renders necessary an immense 

 amount of animal food. 



Hunting dogs travel immense distances, and 

 although quite systematic in their methods, 

 if here to-day may be 30 or 40 miles away to- 

 morrow, and thus it is that they are so seldom 

 seen twice in the same district except after the 

 lapse of some considerable time. Still their stay 

 is usually quite long enough to scatter and 

 demoralise the game over a wide area, and to so 

 shatter the nerves of the grass-eating animals as, 

 at times, to drive them forth and to change com- 

 pletely the aspect of a normally game-haunted 

 region. 



Although I have never had an opportunity of 



