says that "the women not unfrequently suckle the young pups, and so bring them up; but these are always miserably thin, so that we knew a native's dog from a wild one by the starved appearance of the follower of man."[1]
The kindness they show to the domesticated animal does not prevent them from hunting and killing the wild dog. When they catch one, he is killed and thrown ou the fire, his hair is singed off, his entrails are taken out, and he is roasted in au oven constructed of heated stones. The carcass is covered with bark or grass, and earth; and in the course of two hours or more he is well cooked aud fit to be eaten.
Buckley says that the howling of the numerous wild dogs affected his spirits considerably.[2] I can well believe this. When on the Powlett River, some years ago, my hospitable entertainer, the superintendent of the station known as the Wild Cattle Run, killed a calf, in order to provide a sumptuous supper, and the scent of the blood, or the knowledge conveyed to them somehow that a beast had been slain, brought the wild dogs from the forest, and about midnight they came close to the hut and howled most dismally. Ever and anon a savage sound came from them too, as if they knew that blood was near. They did not leave until they had aroused every sleeper.
In the Cape Otway forest, and in the forests at the sources of the Goulburn, they are large and fierce. They generally follow any animal that they mean to kill in a long line, one after the other, several paces apart, the largest and strongest dogs keeping the lead. When snow lies on the eastern mountains, and food is scarce, they will not hesitate to track a traveller.
Their depredations on the flocks of the settlers were at one time of serious importance; and, in consequence, it became necessary to use poison. Great numbers were killed; and then another evil—a serious increase of grass-eating marsupials—followed. Their natural enemy, the dingo, being in any district exterminated or greatly reduced in numbers, they increased in proportion, and soon measures had to be taken to kill the large mobs of kangaroos that consumed the grass.
In one district, a correspondent informs me, the dingoes have become so cunning as to refuse the poisoned baits set for them. It is certain that some sheep-dogs are so well acquainted with the fact that poisoned meats are laid for dogs that they will not eat meat they chance to see when travelling.
The Australian dingo is not wanting in courage. When fairly pinned in a corner, he will attack a man, and exhibit the fierceness of a watch-dog. A rather small dingo was exhibited some years ago at a great dog-show in Melbourne. He attracted much attention, and while I was present he got loose. He was not in the least afraid. He looked carefully at the great number of dogs chained to pillars and posts, and selecting one, a bull-dog, as an antagonist, he walked slowly towards him, erecting his bristles and snarling, and would have attacked him had not a keeper appeared and secured him.
