592 Asiatic Society. [No. 126. 



India ; terms which, as Colonel H. Smith remarks, " appear to signify imitations of 

 the animal's voice when hunting." 



From Herbert's * Gleanings in Science,' I. 280, I extract the following : " The 

 Bhoivsah [Buansu] are found in many parts of the hills of North-western India : there 

 are two kinds, one denominated the Shikari, and the other the Lagh : the latter is 

 much stouter than the former, and its hair longer and darker; it is not so fleet as the 

 Shikari, but possesses a much finer nose ; it quickly regains the scent when lost by the 

 Shikari : it takes the name of Lagh from eating the offal of its prey, which the 

 Shikari does not."* 



A " Red Wolf" is mentioned by geographers as inhabiting the Great Altai; and 

 " Wild Dogs," in addition to Wolves, Jackals, and Foxes, are noticed by Elphinstone 

 to occur in Afghanistan. Such an animal is mentioned by Colonel H. Smith, as "the 

 Beluel of Avicenna, which that author seems to have considered to be the Thos of 

 antiquity. This," continues the learned naturalist cited, " we take to be the Beluch 

 of Beloochistan, one of two species of wild canines found in the woody mountains 

 of South-eastern Persia, and probably extending along the high lands West of the 

 Indus into Cabul. It is described as a red wild Dog, very shy, and extremely 

 ferocious, hunting by day in parties of twenty or thirty, seizing a Bullock or Buffalo 

 without hesitation, and tearing the animal to pieces in a few moments. A British 

 Officer, who traversed a part of this wild region of alternate jungle and sandy plateau, 

 deeply scarred into long and parallel furrows, barren and vertical, so that no quadru- 

 ped can cross many without complete exhaustion, observed a group of these red Dogs 

 lying on the edge of the forest, yet on the watch for game, but they withdrew into 

 cover before he could fire at or completely examine them : they were, however, long 

 and rather low on the legs, of a rufous colour, with a hairy tail and a powerful struc- 

 ture : their foot-marks on the sandy soil were very distinct, and indicated that their 

 feet were exactly like those of a Hound. The native peasants related that they keep 

 aloof from human habitations, and consequently do little injury to human property ; but 

 that no animal, especially if it be entangled in the billowy ridges before mentioned, 

 can escape their pursuit. Having demanded some particulars about their structure, 

 they pointed to a domestic Dog then present, and said that the Beluch was much like 

 it, but larger and destitute of white colour, which marked the domestic animal ; but 

 that there existed, further to the West, a wild species still larger than the red, which 

 had so much white that the brown and black occurred upon its back in the form 

 of spots." The account here given strikingly agrees with that of the Wild Dog of the 

 Raj amahendri district furnished by Major Pew, and appended to Col. Sykes's des- 

 cription of the Colsunm Trans. Roij. As. Soc. Ill, 411, so that there can be very 

 little, if any, doubt of their applying to the self-same species, together with the 

 following. 



" The Red Wild Dog of Southern China," continues Col. Smith, " is most likely 

 another race or species of this subgenus. It is described as resembling the Dingo of 



* A corresponding distinction is said to obtain among the Wolves of North America. Thus, 

 in Silliman's Journal, VI, 93, we read, of those of the Catskill mountains (a series of ranges 

 extending from the vicinity of the St. Lawrence to the Alleghany ridge), that " Two varieties 

 of Wolves are met with, one called by hunters the Deer Wolf, from his habit of pursuing Deer, 

 for which his light Greyhound form adapts him : the other of a more clumsy figure, with short 

 legs, and large body, more frequently depredates upon the flocks under the protection of man." 



