wed, and kept
mewing, and, as I grasped the reins, I heard a sharp growl and a
thrashing through the brush. I knew the old one was coming, and the next
instant she streamed over a log, and alighted in the road. She ran with
her eyes flaming, her hair bristling, and her teeth grinning. She turned
as on a pivot, and gave an unearthly squall, as she saw me racing away,
and bounded after, with such yells and fury, and gained on me so fast,
that for very fear I threw the kitten out, and lashed the flying horse;
but she scarcely paused for that, but bounded on a while, as though
recovery of her young would not suffice without revenge. When I saw her
at my very back, I scarcely breathed until her crying child recalled
her. Here, at the top of this pitch, I looked back, and saw her
standing, with her young one in her mouth, looking after me, as though
she had half a mind to drop the kitten and give chase again. I gave the
horse a cut, and did not feel quite safe until I had got some miles
away. I made up my mind from that time forward to let young kittens
alone, and mind my own business.'"

The Jackal.

Like the hyena, the jackal derives its principal notoriety from its
ferocious and untameable disposition. It is found in Southern Asia, in
many parts of Africa, and, to some extent, in Syria and Persia. There is
not much difference in the jackal and the dog, except in some of the
habits of the two, and there is a great deal of similarity between the
former and the wolf. By many Biblical commentators, it is thought that
the three hundred foxes to which the sacred penman alludes in the book
of Judges, as performing a singular and mischievous exploit in the
standing corn of the Philistines, were jackals; and their habit of
assembling together in large companies, so as to be taken in
considerable numbers, seems to justify this conclusion--the fox being,
on the other hand, a solitary animal, and in the habit of living for
the most part in small families. To the inhabitants of hot countries,
the jackal is of the same service as the vulture and the hyena. He does
not scruple to feed upon putrid flesh. Wherever there is an animal in a
state of putrefaction, he scents it out from a great distance, and soon
devours it. In this way the air is often freed from substances in the
highest degree unwholesome and deadly. Nor is this all. One of the
habits of this animal is to enter grave-yards, and dig up the bodies
that have been buri