THE STORY OF THE JACKAL. 
In India lives a wolf-like creature called the jackal, which gives a peculiar 
wailing howl. As the animal is known to feed on dead bodies, the Anglo- 
Indian version of its howl is as follows: “Dead Hindoo! where, where, 
where!” The jackal has another howl or cry used only when in the vicinity 
of a tiger. I have heard both cries and they are the most peculiar that I can 
recall. There is a fable, religiously believed by the natives of India, that the 
jackal acts as a scout for the lion, and that the king of beasts shares the prey 
with his smaller friend. This took its origin from the fact that the lion, 
after eating his fill, leaves the remainder of the carcass, and the skulking 
jackal, finding it, makes his meal from the leavings. 
The jackal is well known both as a prowler and a scavenger, in which 
capacity he is useful, and as a disturber of our midnight rest by his horrible 
yells, in which peculiarity he is to be looked upon as an unmitigated nui¬ 
sance. He is mischievous, too, occasionally, and will commit havoc among 
poultry and young kids and lambs; but, as a general rule, he is a harmless, 
timid creature, and when animal food fails, he will take readily to vegetables. 
The jackal sometimes feeds on dead bodies, which it digs out of the shallow 
graves made by the natives, and I once came across, in the vicinity of a 
jungle village, the dead body of a child that had been unearthed by a jackal. 
The jackal can be tamed, and I once had several with me in an interior 
village of India. 
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