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?
[Illustration: A WOLFISH GROUP.
1. Coyote. 2. Red Fox. 3. Hyena Dog, or Hunting Dog.
4. Tasmanian Pouched Wolf. 5. Tasmanian Devil. 6. Gray Wolf.]
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.