Page:ChroniclesofEarlyMelbournevol.2.pdf/262

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734
THE CHRONICLES OF EARLY MELBOURNE.

with dogs, for Fawkner's party, w h o had two kangaroo dogs with them, beguiled their Sundays in 1835 in such an anti-Sabbatarian pastime. T h e first n a m e that I have met with as the keeper of a pack of hounds was Mr. T. H . Pyke, in 1844, w h o afforded the sportsmen in and around Melbourne occasional runs in the country, about the Werribee and Keilor. N o doubt from the earliest time the settlers scattered throughout the province would, n o w and then, take the field after a kangaroo or emu, though thisfive-footerof a bird was not easily overhauled, and found little difficulty in kicking over the best kangaroo dog that might come to too close quarters which was not often the case unless in ascending a range. D o w n hill the e m u could extend its short wings, and m a k e short work of the chase. T h e dingo, or wild dog, was m u c h more suitable as an object of hunting, for the animal might be said to partake as much of the nature of the fox as the dog ; in size, form, and habits it resembled Reynard, and afforded good sport to a pack of hounds. T h e dingo, therefore, was as a rule, hunted until other favourites of the English chase were introduced. It was not very long before such began to appear in the country. B y the middle of 1845, Pyke had some foxes, and on the 30th August one of them was started at Penny Royal Creek, some capital sport ensuing. T h e fox after a smart run shaped in the direction of Williamstown, and en route an amusingly unaccountable metamorphosis occurred, for the huntsmen were in at the death—not of a fox, but an emu, and by what possibility the exchange was effected could not be explained. A newspaper of the time records that Mr. William Stawell rode a horse chartered from Mr. J. G. Taylor, w h o kept the Bakers' Arms Hotel in Elizabeth Street, nearly opposite the Post Office, and that the animal was accidentally killed during the run. By the next year hunting had become more general. A club, known as the Corio Club, was in existence at Ceelong, and it had as its huntsman a Mr. John Perks, w h o was m u c h of a favourite. H e resided in a hut on Willis's Cattle Station, at Indented Head, and one day in November, 1846, going some distance into the bush, and not returning so soon as expected, some friends started out in search, found him dying, and he immediately expired. It is supposed he had been sun-struck. Messrs. Ferrers and Mercer also kept hounds, and hunted twice a week about Buninyong and the Leigh ; and Mr. Bacchus, junr., showed off at the Werribee, where a H u n t Club was formed, when some fallow deer were imported to Ceelong in June, 1849. O n the n t h July, one of them, a poor little mite of a thing, was enlarged at the Little River, but in less than twenty minutes it was caught, and died shortly after. T h e next night there was a H u n t Ball at Ceelong, attended by a hundred visitors. Mr. James Henderson, for years the Secretary of the Port Phillip Turf Club, was also the proprietor of a hunting pack, and in 1851 a stag was imported from V a n Diemen's Land. O n the 28th of September there was a grand turn-out of the Hendersonian hounds on Emerald Hill, and a field offiftyhorsemen. T h e stag was let off, and after a two-mile spin towards Caulfield, then a houseless and unsettled region, the panting animal burst into a mia-mia of Aborigines, and frightened almost out of their senses, not only black men, women, and babies, but also the inevitable native camp following—a hungry horde of mangy dogs. T h e stag got off, making for what was then known as Big Brighton, where he was run d o w n ; but the dogs were whipped off, and the quarry saved for another day. Several of the equestrians were unwillingly treated to spills, but the most unfortunate of them was a once sporting physician, for a newspaper reports, "that Dr. Black had several falls in the commencement."