Chap. X. THE WILD DOG. 215 



ceros with angry snort clashed at Dr. Livingstone as he 

 stooped to pick up a specimen of the wild fruit morula ; but 

 she strangely stopped stock-still when less than her own 

 length distant, and gave him time to escape ; a branch 

 pulled out his watch as he ran, and turning half round 

 to grasp it, he got a distant glance of her and her calf still 

 standing on the selfsame spot, as if arrested in the middle of 

 her charge by an unseen hand. When about fifty yards off, 

 thinking his companions close behind, he shouted " Look out 

 there ! " when off she rushed, snorting loudly, in another 

 direction. The Doctor usually went unarmed before this, but 

 never afterwards. 



A peculiar yelping came from one part of the jungle, and 

 Charles Livingstone found it to proceed from a troop of wild 

 dogs wrangling over the remains of a buffalo which they 

 had killed and nearly devoured. The wild dog (Hycena 

 venatica) has a large head, and jaws of great power ; the ears 

 are long, the colour black and yellow in patches, with 

 a white tuft at the tip of the tail. They hunt their game 

 in packs, and perseveringly follow the animal they first start 

 till they bring him down. The Balala of the Kalahari 

 desert are said to have formerly tamed them and to have 

 employed them to hunt. An intelligent native at Kolo- 

 beng remembered when a boy to have seen a pack of 

 the dogs returning from a hunt in charge of their masters, 

 who drove them like a herd of goats, and for safety kept 

 them in a pit. A fine eland was shot by Dr. Kirk this 

 afternoon, the first we have killed. It was in first-rate 

 condition, and remarkably fat; but the meat, though so 

 tempting in appearance, severely deranged all who partook 

 of it heartily, especially those who ate of the fat. Natives 

 who live in game countries, and are acquainted with the 



