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Page:Following the Equator (Mark Twain).djvu/193

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THE DINGO.
185

to me. This one opened his head wide and laughed like a LAUGHING JACKASS.
LAUGHING JACKASS.
demon; or like a maniac who was consumed with humorous scorn over a cheap and degraded pun. It was a very human laugh. If he had been out of sight I could have believed that the laughter came from a man. It is an odd-looking bird, with a head and beak that are much too large for its body. In time man will exterminate the rest of the wild creatures of Australia, but this one will probably survive, for man is his friend and lets him alone. Man always has a good reason for his charities towards wild things, human or animal—when he has any. In this case the bird is spared because he kills snakes. If L. J. will take my advice he will not kill all of them.

In that garden I also saw the wild Australian dog—the dingo. He was a beautiful creature—shapely, graceful, a little wolfish in some of his aspects, but with a most friendly eye and sociable disposition. The dingo is not an importation; he was present in great force when the whites first came to the