524 
Sheepdogs, and Spaniels are variously used, 
but the Japanese officers who visited Europe 
some years ago to study the relative merits 
of the different dogs decided in favour of the 
Collie, which is also the breed approved in 
the army of the Sultan. 
In the British Army it is of course the 
Collie that is used for ambulance work, 
and the greater number have been trained 
under the instructions of Major E. H. 
Richardson, late West Yorkshire Regiment, 
some of whose dogs were used with excellent 
results in the recent campaign in Manchuria 
by the Russian Red Cross Society. The 
invaluable aid which these dogs rendered 
resulted in the saving of many a wounded 
soldier’s life. Ambulance trials are periodic- 
ally held at Aldershot, and other military 
camps. Men are hidden in ditches, tall 
grass, and woods, and the Collies, started 
off by word of command, speedily find 
them. 
Pariah Dogs.—Pariah dogs are to be 
found in almost all Oriental towns prowl- 
ing about their own particular encampment, 
and in a measure protecting the greater 
encampments of their human friends. 
Primarily they are not wild dogs attracted 
towards the dwellings of men by an easy 
means of obtaining food, but descendants of 
the sentinel and scavenger dogs of a nomad 
race, domestic dogs which have degenerated 
into semi-wildness, yet which remain, as by 
inherited habit, in association with mankind. 
They vary considerably according to their 
abode, and there is no fixed type ; they are 
all mongrels. But by the process of in- 
discriminate interbreeding and the influence 
of environment, they acquire local character 
which may often be mistaken for type. 
And, indeed, they are sufficiently alike to 
be described generally as about the size of 
the Collie, resembling the Dingo, tawny in 
colour, with a furry coat, a bushy tail, and 
pointed ears. Everywhere they are master- 
less, living upon what they can pick up in 
the streets. Everywhere they gather in 
separate communities restricted by recog- 
nised frontiers beyond which they never 
stray, and into which the dogs of no other 
community are permitted to enter. Every- 
THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 
where each separate pack has its chosen 
leader or sentinel who is followed and 
obeyed and who alone has the privilege of 
challenging the leader of a rival pack and of 
keeping his subjects within bounds. 
It is the common custom to speak and 
write of Pariah dogs as diseased and de- 
testable scavengers, feeding on garbage, 
snarling and snapping at all strangers, and 
making night hideous by their unearthly 
howling. But no lover of dogs can live for 
any length of time in an eastern city such as 
Constantinople without being intensely 
interested in these despised and rejected 
waifs. Studying them for their points, he 
will acknowledge that when in good condition 
many of them are handsome beasts, not 
wholly destitute of the qualities desired in 
the more favoured breeds. Studying them 
for their habits, he will discover what is 
often missed by the inattentive observer, 
that they have characteristics meriting 
admiration rather than disgust and con- 
tempt. 
They are not scavengers in the literal 
sense. They do not feed on filth and offal, 
but merely select such scraps as serve their 
purpose out of the dustbins placed at night 
outside the door of every house to be re- 
moved in the early morning. Frequently, 
on account of the dogs, these bins contain 
more and better food than would otherwise 
be thrown away. Where Pariahs are not 
ill-used they are rarely aggressive, and often 
very sociable, and when kindly notice is 
taken of them they will return the civility 
with a canine caress. The Turks, who 
consider the dog an unclean animal, never 
willingly touch them; but otherwise they 
treat them most humanely. In hot weather 
they supply them regularly with water, 
and when a bitch is with whelp, a box is 
reserved for her in some sheltered corner, 
in which the puppies are born. As the 
pups are remarkably pretty, they are petted 
by the children, and fed with scraps of a 
better quality of food than their parents are 
able to find. 
There are more dogs in Pera than in 
Stamboul, a fact which is no doubt due to 
the greater number of hotels and restaurants 
