NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 
fact in many parts, stock farming is rendered quite 
unprofitable owing to the depredations of these 
dogs. Statistics show that in Southern Rhodesia 
109 wild dogs were killed in the year 1911. 
The number of puppies at a birth on the average 
is the same as with domestic dogs. Often, however, 
as many as ten or twelve in a litter have been found. 
They are born and reared in a burrow dug in the 
ground out on the open veld. These are con- 
nected with each other by subterranean passages. 
Frequently the deserted holes of the Aard Varks are 
utilised and altered to suit the requirements of the 
animal. Like the Cape Jackals, the adult wild dogs 
do not take refuge in these burrows, but when 
pursued at once make off to the nearest patch 
of bush, finding sanctuary in the dense, thorny 
thickets, which are impossible of penetration by 
the pursuer. | 
It is not often at the present time we find the 
burrows out upon the open veld. They are exca- 
vated within the precincts of the dense, thorny 
scrub which abounds in South Africa. Animals 
rapidly learn by experience. These dogs, for in- 
stance, know full well that now the country is over- 
run with a deadly foe in the shape of man, it would 
be courting death for them to attempt to rear their 
families out upon the open veld. Like the human 
race when confronted for the first time with some 
altogether new form of danger, the lower animals 
are at a loss how to act, and numbers of them perish, 
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