The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-07-21
RED DOG.

A Mighty Hunter in India and MT.
 Kipling's Jungle Book.
 The red dog never reaches the size of a wolf, though it exceeds that of a jackal. Its shape is uncouth, the body narrow and low in the forequarters, with loose limbs ending in large awk- ward paws, the head and brush carried low. The head, remarkable for the large blunt furry ears, is inter- mediate between the domestic dog and fox, without the honest look of the one Tor the quick witted sharpness of the other. Against these disadvantages the bright chestnut hue of the wild dog's coat, shading into black at the end of the brush, does not avail for handsome ness.
 Over most of India 1t to be found, on mountains and in plains, in forest, |where forest grows, and about the bare slopes where the hills have not vegeta- tion. East of India a very similar beast ranges even to Java, and another paler and shaggier, haunts Siberia and Saghalien, so that over most of Asia one form or other is to be reckoned with. Naturally the Indian species is at all intimately, for though so vide ly spread it is not common animal and the field naturalisrs of India have little to say of it. But it is clear that the red dog Is a very different animal from the wolf, and far superior to any other Eastern canine. Most of the wild relatives of our dogs are cowardly beasts, feeding on carrion and small animals, and only attacking larger ones when hard pressed by hunger-such is the wolf's way of life; while the jackal skulks round villages and sometimes enters large towns in search of scraps, making night hideous with his howls, even in Calcutta But the red dog is a true hunter, the deadliest foe to the game animals that is known in the East. He is not very swift-less so than the jackal-nor is he adroit at the double or graceful in his actions, but he follows the scent, mostly in silence, with a deadly persistence, and however long the trail may be the pack runs in- to their victim without fail in the end. They do not go in large numbers-a dozen would be big pack-but what they want in force is replaced by their courage and cunning strategy in att tack.
 Their ordinary prey Is the powerful sambur deer and the beautiful spotted axis, corresponding to our red deer and fallow deer; the various antelopes of the plains and wild goats of the hills. All of these they harry in turn for a few days; then the terrified beasts forsake that section of the jungle, and the red pack must range far afield again, not to return till long after, when the terror of their raid has sub sided in the locality. Their methods of attack are terrible in the extreme some of their devices indeed can hardly be mentioned here. Suffice it to say that their ordinary plan, whenever possible is to disembowel the victim.
 Deer are not the only prey on which these terrible cretures adventure; the biggest horns known of the gaur (Bos gaurus) came from one said to have been killed by wild dogs of the Bur- mese race in this case; and yet the gaur, the largest of all wild oxen, is too much for the ordinary tiger. And the tiger often fails with the boar, the most gallant of all wild animals, but the red pack will bring him to his end. Their fellow carnivores even are not safe; the black bear of the Himalayas, although the f1ercest of Indian bears, has been seen in his last struggle with the pack torn coat and flesh in strips, fighting gamely still.-saturday Re- view.