CHAPTER IX

THE DOG TRIBE

Next in order comes the great tribe of the dogs, which includes altogether about forty different animals. We are not speaking of domestic dogs, for we have not space in which to tell you about those. Indeed, if we were to say all that might be said about them, they would want a very big book all to themselves; and fortunately there are many good books about domestic dogs that readers who desire them can easily get. But besides the tame dogs there are two or three wild dogs in the dog tribe, several wolves, several jackals, and several foxes; and many of them are very interesting creatures.

THE DHOLE

First of all, there is a dog which is known by three different names. Sometimes it is called the dhole, sometimes the kholsun, and sometimes the buansuah. It lives in India, but it is not very often seen, for it keeps to the thickest parts of the jungle, and never ventures near the habitations of man. Yet it is by no means a cowardly animal, like the hyenas and the aard-wolf. On the contrary, it is extremely courageous, and does not seem to know what fear is, for it will even attack the tiger itself, and more than that, will kill it.

Of course the tiger is by far the stronger and more formidable animal of the two, and if he only had one dhole to reckon with, there would be no doubt as to the issue of the combat. But the dhole always hunts in packs. Sometimes there are eight or ten animals in one of these packs; sometimes there are fifteen; sometimes there are as many as twenty, or even thirty. And so fierce are they, and so determined, and so persevering, that it is said that when they once put up an animal--that is, start it from cover--no matter whether it be large or small, they never fail to kill it.

The deer, of course, are swifter than they are. But then the deer become tired much sooner than the dholes; and while they are resting their pursuers catch up with them. The tiger is much more powerful, and has his talons and fangs to fight with. But while he is killing one of his foes three or four more are leaping upon him; and even if he should succeed in killing half the pack the rest will still go on fighting as savagely as ever. They do not dread the horns of the buffalo, or the tusks of the wild boar. In fact, they dread nothing, and no animals are so feared in the jungle.

When the pack are running, they never bark, or yelp or bay, as almost all domesticated dogs do. For the most part they are silent, the only sound which they utter being a low whimper. In color the dhole is a rich bay, which becomes rather darker upon the ears, the muzzle, and the tip of the tail.

THE DINGO

This is the only member of the dog tribe found in Australia, and many naturalists think that it is not really a native of that continent, but was brought there a very long time ago from some other country. But as the dingo is not now found in any other part of the world, it is quite impossible to say whether this is actually the case or not. It is a very fine-looking animal, about as big as a large sheep-dog, with a reddish-brown coat, pointed, upright ears, and a bushy tail. And if you were to see it you would most likely think that it must be a very gentle animal. We have already seen, however, that there are several creatures which look very gentle, but are in reality most savage and ferocious, and though the dingo is not quite so fierce as the fossa or the wildcat, its appearance is not at all in keeping with its character, for it is very bad-tempered and hard to tame, and is always liable to fits of rage.

In many ways the dingo is not unlike the dhole. It lives in packs, for instance, which scour the country in search of prey. These packs are always led by one of the strongest and most experienced animals, which has won its position by fighting and overcoming all the rest; and when the leader begins to grow old and feeble, a younger and stronger animal takes his place by overcoming him in the same way. In some strange manner, these packs divide up the country among themselves. Each pack has its own district allotted to it, over which it may roam at will, while it is never permitted to hunt outside its own borders. Wouldn't it be interesting to know how these districts are marked out, and how the animals arrange what part of the country shall be allotted to each pack?

When the first white colonists settled down in Tasmania, they found these packs of dingoes terribly troublesome, for they would visit the folds night after night and carry off the sheep and lambs in numbers. Watchers were employed to shoot them, traps were set for them, huge bonfires were lighted to keep them away; but all to no purpose. One colony lost twelve hundred sheep from their ravages in less than three months; another lost seven hundred. At last the settlers banded themselves together in a war against the dingoes, and by hanging pieces of poisoned meat to the branches of trees, about a foot from the ground, they succeeded in greatly reducing their numbers, so that now they are comparatively scarce.

A dingo which was kept at the London Zoo many years ago used to sit outside his kennel and bay at the moon so loudly that his dismal howling could be heard all over the Regent's Park.

THE CRAB-EATING DOG

Two or three kinds of wild dog are also found in South America; but of these we can only mention the crab-eating dog which is chiefly found in the forests of Guiana, Demerara, and Brazil.

This animal owes its name to its great fondness for crabs. Even domestic dogs will often eat these creatures. "I once had a black-and-tan terrier, called 'Jock,'" says a writer, "whose greatest delight was to be taken for a walk along the sea-shore, so that he might hunt for crabs. Whenever he found one he would fling it up into the air half a dozen times or so, until it was perfectly dazed. Then holding it down with one paw, he would twist off the great claws so that it could not nip him; and finally he would crunch up its body and lick out pieces of flesh from the shell. Now and then, however, he would get a pinch and I would see him dancing about on his hind legs with a crab hanging to his lip, howling pitifully for me to come and set him free."

Whether the crab-eating dog gets nipped in the same way, sometimes, we cannot tell you. Most likely he does; at any rate he spends a great deal of his time in hunting for crabs on the shore. But he also feeds on small animals and birds, and it is said that sometimes he hunts in packs, like the dingo and the dhole, which even run down and kill the swift-footed deer.

WOLVES

Of wolves--which are really only large and very savage wild dogs--there are several different kinds.

First of all, of course, there is the common wolf of Europe. We have all read accounts of its ferocity, and of the way in which it sometimes pursues travelers through the Russian forests during the depths of winter. In days of old it was plentiful in England, while the last wild wolf in Scotland was not killed until the middle of the eighteenth century.

During the spring, summer, and autumn the wolf is mostly found singly, or at any rate only in pairs. But when the ground is covered with snow, and food becomes scarce, the hungry animals gather together in packs, which scour the forest in all directions and kill every living creature which they meet. In the year 1875 no less than 161 human beings fell victims to them in Russia, while the mischief which they do in the farmyards and sheepfolds is very great. In Livonia alone, for instance, during a single year, 15,182 sheep, 1,807 cattle, 1,841 horses, 3,270 goats, 4,190 pigs, 703 dogs, and 1,873 geese and fowls were destroyed by wolves.

In some parts of France, too, these animals are still not uncommon, although a reward of one hundred francs is paid for every adult wolf that is killed, and thirty francs for each cub. And they are also found in almost every other country in Europe.

When they are not famished with hunger, wolves are by no means courageous animals, and if we have many tales of their savage ferocity we have quite as many more which bear witness to their cowardice. In Norway, for example, a large tract of country in which wolves had always been only too numerous was suddenly deserted by them; and what do you think was the reason? Simply that a telegraph wire had been put up, which frightened the wolves so much that they left the neighborhood altogether, and never came near it again! And if a hunter kills a deer, and wishes to leave the carcass lying on the ground for a while, and at the same time to protect it from the wolves, all that he has to do is to plant three or four sticks beside it with streamers of white cloth fastened to the tips; for not a wolf will dare to approach the spot as long as these are fluttering in the wind.

When wolves are running they generally utter a series of dismal howls, which are so loud that they can be heard by any one miles away. And even a single wolf can make such an outcry that more than once a traveler, hearing one howl, has imagined that a large pack were in pursuit of him, and has climbed into a tree and spent the whole night among the branches before discovering his mistake.

Wolves usually make their lairs among rocks, or in the trunk of a hollow tree, or among thick bushes. But sometimes they live in holes in the ground, which they seem to dig out for themselves. There are generally from six to ten cubs in a litter, which are born in the spring, and do not leave their parents for at least eight or nine months. Strange to say, the father often seems much fonder of them than the mother, for he will take care of them, and hunt for them, and teach them how to hunt for themselves for weeks after she has left them altogether.

WOLVES IN INDIA

The common wolf is by no means confined to Europe, but is also found in many parts of Asia, and throughout almost the whole of North America. In India, however, there is another kind of wolf which is rather smaller, and has very much shorter fur. It is seldom seen in large packs, and hardly ever howls as the common wolf does. It is not in the habit, as a rule, of attacking human beings. But now and then two or three of these animals will band together to attack a man, while sometimes they will prowl round the outskirts of a native village, in the hope of being able to carry off some of the smaller children.

These animals have a very clever way, too, of killing deer. Three or four of them will creep quietly up and hide themselves near the spot where the deer are feeding. Then another will come dashing up from the opposite direction, the result, of course, being that when the frightened animals run away they pass close to the very place where their enemies are lying concealed.

COYOTES

On the great plains of North America lives a very handsome wolf called the coyote, or prairie-wolf. It is a good deal smaller than the common wolf, but has much thicker and longer fur, so that it looks bigger than it really is. And a very odd thing about it is that it is differently colored at different seasons of the year, being reddish yellowish brown in summer, and grayish, or even quite gray, in winter. The back is generally darker than the rest of the body, and the tail is rather long and very bushy.

The coyote takes the place of the hyena as a scavenger, but has some of the habits of the fox. It catches birds and jackrabbits, and feeds on insects, as well as small rodents like prairie-dogs and mice. Its melancholy howls make night hideous to prairie-dwellers. It is the steady foe of young creatures, such as the fawns of deer. The skin of this animal is thick and makes good fur wraps.

Coyotes assemble in packs like jackals. It is not an easy matter to destroy them, for they are so wary that it is almost impossible to approach within gunshot. Often a single coyote will do a great deal of mischief before it can be killed. Poison kills a great many; but a good fence of wire netting has been found to be the best remedy against these troublesome creatures.

JACKALS

Jackals may be described as half wolves and half foxes. One of these animals, the common jackal, is found in great numbers in the south of Asia, and north of Africa, and the southeastern corner of Europe. Sometimes it is seen singly, sometimes in pairs; but generally it associates in great packs, which go roaming about the country together. In India these packs visit the native villages by night, to carry away any offal which may have been thrown out of the houses. They are "nature's dustmen," you see, like the hyenas. Then they will follow a lion or a tiger about for weeks, in order to feast upon the carcasses of the animals which he kills, after he has eaten his fill. And when twenty or thirty of these ravenous creatures are all struggling and fighting over the body of a deer or an antelope, you can easily imagine that in a short time there is not very much of it left.

The jackal is sometimes called "the lion's provider," but we may say that the lion ought rather to be called "the jackal's provider."

The natives of Africa say that the jackals stand very much in awe of the lion, and seldom dare even to show themselves until he has eaten his fill of his victim's body, and has gone away to sleep. And they also declare that if a jackal comes too near the carcass before the lion has finished his meal, the lion catches him and bites off all his paws in order to teach the rest of the pack better manners.

The howling cry of the jackal is very strange and weird, and the animals call to one another, and answer one another, just as if they were carrying on a conversation. First comes a long, wailing yell; then another, rather higher, then another, a little higher still, and then three short, sharp barks. And so on, over and over again.

When a jackal is caught, it often pretends to be dead, and will be perfectly still for a very long time in the hope of being able to make its escape when the attention of its captors is taken off. On one occasion one of these animals lay without moving for a whole hour although several times it was picked up and worried by a dog. Then quite suddenly it jumped up and rushed away apparently unhurt.

The common jackal is reddish brown in color, sometimes lighter and sometimes darker, while the tip of the tail is black. But there is another kind of jackal found in South Africa which has the whole upper part of the back black, and the lower part of the body and the inner sides of the limbs nearly white. This animal is called the black-backed jackal, while a third, which has a pale streak running across its flanks, is called the side-striped jackal. In habits the three animals are almost exactly alike.

FOXES

The best-known of the foxes, of course, is the common fox of Great Britain and Western Europe, which is also found in many other parts of the world.

This animal is famous for its cunning, and certainly, in many ways, it is very clever. It has all sorts of tricks, for example, to throw the hounds off its track when it is being hunted. It seems to know perfectly well that it is followed by scent, and sometimes it will suddenly leap to one side so as to break the trail, and then make off in quite a different direction. Sometimes, when it has a sufficient start, it will return on its track for sixty or seventy yards, and then leap aside. Or it will roll in carrion in order to disguise its own peculiar odor. A hunter tells us that he once found a fox's burrow which was very cleverly made. The entrance to it was about twenty feet from the edge of a sand-pit, in the middle of a thick clump of bushes, and there was a "bolt-hole" about half way down the side of the pit. So when the fox was chased he could run into his burrow by the upper entrance, slip out by the lower one, and so make his escape through the pit while the hounds were all gathered round the hole up above.

Very often a fox will climb a tree, sometimes to a great height, and hide among the branches, and we have heard of a fox which baffled the hounds over and over again in a most ingenious way. He used to run to a certain fence, spring to the top, and then walk along for several hundred yards before leaping down again to the ground. By doing this, of course, he broke the scent most thoroughly, and long before the hounds could find it again he had reached a place of safety.

But although the fox is generally so clever he sometimes does the most stupid things possible. Charles Waterton tells us of a fox which visited a poultry-yard and carried off eight young turkeys. He could not eat them all, of course, so he buried five in the ground, meaning no doubt, to come and fetch them away on the following evening. But apparently he thought that if he buried them entirely he might not be able to find them again. So he carefully left one wing of each bird sticking up above the surface to serve as a guide, and never seemed to reflect that others would be able to see it as well as himself! So the farmer recovered his turkeys, and when Reynard came to look for his supper next night he found that it had disappeared.

The burrow of a fox is sometimes an old rabbit-hole enlarged to a suitable size. But generally the animal scrapes out a burrow for himself, frequently choosing the roots of a large tree as a situation, or a very rocky piece of ground from which it will be very difficult to dig him out. In this burrow four or five little ones are brought up. They are odd-looking creatures, with very snub noses, and if you did not know what they were you would never take them for young foxes.

THE ARCTIC FOX

This animal, more interesting still, perhaps, lives in the ice-bound regions of the far north. There are often several of these to be seen in a zoo, and the first thing that one notices on seeing them is that no two of them are alike. One, perhaps, is reddish brown above and yellowish white beneath. Another is gray all over. A third, very likely, is mottled; while a fourth may be of that curious bluish color which we see in Russian cats.

In fact, in the snowy polar regions a great many of these foxes turn perfectly white in winter. This enables them to creep over the snow without being seen by their victims. Then, when warmer weather comes, and the snow begins to melt, their fur passes back again to its original color.

During the spring and summer the arctic fox feeds on sea-birds and their eggs, and it is said to attract the birds to the place where it is lying in wait by imitating their peculiar cries. But we do not think that that is true. What it feeds upon during the rest of the year is rather doubtful. It cannot catch birds, for they have all flown away farther south. It cannot catch fishes, for the water is covered in by ice several feet in thickness. Most likely it catches numbers of those odd little animals known as lemmings just as winter begins, and stores them away in a kind of larder, where the cold prevents their bodies from decaying.

The arctic fox is a good deal smaller than the common fox, and has ears so short and rounded that they look just as if they had been cropped.

In order to allow it to travel over the slippery ice, the arctic fox has the soles of its feet covered with long stiff hairs, which give it a perfectly firm foothold on the frozen surface.

The arctic fox is not nearly such a clever animal as the common fox, and is very easily trapped. If a hunter follows one, it will certainly run into its hole; but a moment or two later it is almost sure to poke out its head in order to yelp at him, so that he is easily able to shoot it. The consequence is that these animals are destroyed in very great numbers for the sake of their skins, those with bluish fur being especially valuable.

First-class skins of these foxes are, in truth, among the most costly of furs. In view of this, men interested in the fur-trade in Alaska have endeavored to raise them in captivity, so as to obtain a constant supply of their pelts. This experiment has succeeded best on a certain island in Bering Sea, where a large colony of arctic foxes is kept, guarded and tended by Eskimos, who feed them, and who once a year catch and kill a certain number when their fur is in its best condition.

AMERICAN FOXES

Besides the arctic fox, which of course is found in American as well as other arctic regions, this country has many species of fox that belong peculiarly to itself. William T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoölogical Park, who has written many instructive things about animals, tells us in his "American Natural History" that north of Mexico this continent has sixteen distinct species of foxes, some of which have several subspecies.

The American fox most widely found is that which Mr. Hornaday calls "our wise old friend, the red fox," which is so well known in many parts of the country. It is a very cunning creature, "so well able to take care of itself that it refuses to be exterminated." Still we are told that it was not hard for the early settlers in this country to outwit the red foxes, and to shoot them and trap them when they came into the clearings where the settlers made their homes. It is easier to get the better of these animals in a wild region than where many people live, for the foxes are sharp observers and appear to learn many things from seeing what their human neighbors do. Naturalists tell us that in this way the American foxes have come to be almost as intelligent as those of the Old World. The red fox, we are told, "now holds his own against man, as much by boldness and audacity as by caution; few of our wild animals look on man with so little awe."

You must have read many stories illustrating this boldness of the fox, often shown in robbing hen-roosts and even catching chickens in the yards or the fields. And quite as remarkable are the accounts of foxes' cunning in avoiding hunters and hounds. In fact, they have often been known to follow the very hunter who was looking for them, as though they wanted to learn all his ways so as to be better able to baffle him.

The gray fox, which is somewhat smaller than the red fox, belongs especially to the southern part of the country, "but it ranges northward far into the home of the red fox." It is very wild, and can move swiftly. Sometimes, to escape from dogs, it will climb a small tree and get far above the pursuer's reach. It is at its best only in the forest, and cannot hold its own as the red fox does, in a country much inhabited by men. With all his slyness the gray fox "lacks that astonishing shrewdness and faculty for working out deep-laid schemes which enables the red fox to turn the tables on the hunter."

All the different varieties of American fox are more or less closely related to the one or the other of these two--the red fox and the gray fox--so that naturalists class them in two groups, the red fox group and the gray fox group. If you learn all that you can about them you will find that you have obtained a great deal of interesting knowledge.

THE FENNEC

This is a very pretty fox-like little animal found in Nubia and Egypt. It is only about twenty inches long, including its big bushy tail, and its fur is sometimes pale fawn color, and sometimes creamy white. But what strikes one most about it is the extraordinary size of its ears, which are always carried perfectly upright, and look as if they were intended for an animal at least five times as big as itself.

The fennec is a creature of the desert, and lives in burrows which it scoops out in the sand. In order to make these burrows more comfortable, it lines them with leaves, hair, and the feathers of birds, while they are nearly always situated beneath the roots of plants, where the sand is softer and more easy to work. The animal digs with the most wonderful speed, and those who have surprised it while at a distance from its burrow say that it disappears in the sand just as though it were sinking into water, and is lost to sight in a few seconds.

The fennec spends the heat of the day comfortably curled up in its burrow, with its nose tucked away under its big bushy tail. When the sun sets it wakes up and goes off to the nearest water to drink, after which it hunts for jerboas, birds, lizards, insects, and the various other small creatures upon which it feeds.

THE HUNTING-DOG

Although a member of the great dog tribe, this animal is not really a dog. It looks very much like a spotted hyena, and yet it is not really a hyena. Sometimes it is known as the hyena-dog, and perhaps that is the best name which can be given to it.

These animals are found throughout Southern Africa, and are especially numerous in Cape Colony. They hunt in packs of from ten to fifty or sixty, which run with such wonderful speed that even the swiftest antelopes cannot escape them. When they catch up with their quarry they all spring upon it together, snapping at it over and over again until they bring it to the ground. And in a few minutes there is nothing left of its carcass but just a few of the larger bones.

In size the hyena-dog is about as big as a wolf. In color it varies a good deal, but the head is always black, with a white mark round the eyes, while the body is more or less mottled with black, white, and yellow. The long bushy tail is yellow at the root, black in the middle, and white at the tip.