f these scavengers is the jackal--the Bohemian of
the desert--whose territory extends from the Gulf of Persia to the
Strait of Gibraltar. He is equally at home in Arabia, Persia, Babylonia,
Syria, Egypt, and the entire North Coast of Africa, and no country from
Barbary to the Cape of Good Hope is ever out of reach of his ghostly
and uncouth howls. He travels only by night, and very rapidly.

When suffering with extreme hunger, he will attack man, but this he will
do only in very rare cases. As he lives entirely upon dead animals, he
is more of a thief and glutton than a robber and murderer. He depends
mostly upon flight and darkness for his protection, and rarely ventures
a direct attack. With all his unlikable habits he is truly valuable as
an agent of public salubrity, and an important officer of the desert
"commission of highways."

These public scavengers, while especially fond of carcasses and putrid
flesh, are not averse to a little fresh meat occasionally. The jackal is
truly the follower or purveyor for the lion, and oftentimes they work
together. Jackals will gather in large numbers near a lion's den and
howl and scream until the lions come forth to disperse them. As soon as
a lion appears they stop their noise, but when he is out of sight, they
immediately begin again. This is done because game is near, and the wise
jackals wish the lion to kill the game. When this is done, and the lions
have eaten all except the bones, the jackals have their small feast of
scraps.

These weird night prowlers have ways all their own, as any one who has
spent a night in a tropical desert can attest. Imagine yourself on the
Syrian plains between Bagdad and Damascus; a small white tent, and a
starry sky: the silence is appalling, and you are just about to have
your first sleep in the desert. Away, away from the distance comes a
mournful, ghostly cry. Suddenly it ceases and like myriads of echoes it
is repeated in hideous intensity--a babel of cries weird beyond
description--so fierce and screeching as to be almost blood-curdling. It
seems to come from all directions and distance out of measure! Vibrating
over the sands and through the rocks, filling the immense void, crying
out as it were for the sphinx, a veritable _de profundis_ of the wastes.
The vultures, who hold the fort during the day have given way to the
night shift, the jackals. These come from all directions; from the caves
in the earth, from among the rocks, from he