34 



MAMMALIA. 



[Chap. T. 



are at present bred by the horse-keepers to be killed 

 for sake of the reward. 



The Pariahs of Colombo exhibit something of the 

 same instinct, by which the dogs in other eastern cities 

 partition the towns into districts, each apportioned to a 

 separate pack, by whom it is jealously guarded from 

 the encroachments of all intruders. Travellers at Cairo 

 and Constantinople are often startled at night by the 

 racket occasioned by the demonstrations made by the 

 rightful possessors of a locality in repelling its invasion 

 by some straggling wanderer. At Alexandria, in 1844, 

 the dogs had multiplied to such an inconvenient extent, 

 that Mehemet Ali, to abate the nuisance, caused them 

 to be shipped in boats and conveyed to one of the is- 

 lands at the mouth of the Nile. But the streets, thus 

 deprived of their habitual patroles, were speedily in- 

 fested by dogs from the suburbs, in such numbers 

 that the evil became greater than before, and in the 

 following year, the legitimate denizens were recalled 

 from their exile in the Delta, and speedily drove back 

 the intruders within their original boundary. May 

 not this disposition of the dog be referable to the 

 impulse by which, in a state of nature, each pack ap- 

 propriates its own hunting-fields within a particular 

 area? and may not the impulse which, even in a 

 state of domestication, they still manifest to attack 

 a passing dog upon the road, be a remnant of this 

 localised instinct, and a concomitant dislike of in- 

 trusion ? 



Jackal. — The Jackal 1 in the low country of Ceylon 

 hunts thus in packs, headed by a leader, and these 

 audacious prowlers have been seen to assault and pull 

 1 Canis Aureus, Linn. 



