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ordinary jackals, and extraordinary jackals, as well as foxes. A jackal is recognisable at once—a mean-looking fox of the wrong colour. The prettiest jackal is the black-backed, but still he is a jackal and nothing better; as unmistakable as though he went about singing, "My name it is Jackal," after the Coal Hole bard. It is odd to observe how, in a jackal the influence of ages of habit remains. Never hunting for himself, and always waiting for the broken leavings of some more powerful hunter, he cannot, even now in his cage, altogether believe that his dinner is intended, in the first place, entirely for himself. So, when North pokes it between the bars he hesitates for a moment, and looks round for the lion. It is sad life wherein one doubts ownership in one's own dinner.

A fox must be an unpleasant sort of person to live with, for other reasons beside the smell. A fox's conversation consists chiefly of snarls. Put two foxes together, and they will at once begin to invent occasions for snarling at one another. They don't quarrel outright, probably from fear of the consequences. The favourite device of one of the Indian desert foxes here is of a Donnybrookian flavour. His mate has a way of amusing herself with a little circus—just trotting round the floor in a ring. He watches her at this amusement, and when a snarl seems desirable, he dismounts from his perch and lays his tail just across her track, and waits for her to trample on it; then he snarls and snaps at her face, and she snarls and snaps at his. This being accomplished, he returns, perfectly satisfied, to his roost, to rest and doze till his system requires refreshing with another snarl. A properly-executed, mutual snarl, almost approaching