Chap, xi.] HUNTING BANDICOOTS. 



233 



black fruits. As we approached the bats showed signs of un- 

 easiness, and after the first shot were rather difficult to 

 approach, moving on from before us and pitching in a fresh 

 tree some way ahead. 



The bats uttered a curious cackling cry when disturbed. 

 They were in enormous numbers, and although thousands had 

 been shot not long before by a large party got together for the 

 purpose, their numbers were not perceptibly reduced. They 

 do great harm to the fruit orchards about Paramatta, and the 

 fruit growers there organise parties to shoot them. They have 

 the cunning to choose a set of trees where the undergrowth is 

 exceedingly dense, and where it is therefore difficult to get at 

 them. I shot seven or eight, but they are very apt to hang up 

 by their hooked claws when shot, and I lost several. I could 

 find no Nycteribia living on these bats, although these insects 

 are usually so common on the various species of Pteropus. 



At Pennant Hills, near Paramatta, there is plenty of bush- 

 land and a fine large " common," as it is called, i.e.^ a tract of 

 wild uncleared land of several thousand acres, in which all the 

 neighbouring landowners have the right to cut timber and 

 firewood. It is a fine wild track, with gullies, in which run 

 small streams amongst the sandstone rocks and steep rocky 

 banks covered with ferns, orchids, and Cirass-trees, and other 

 plants, forming a varied and beautiful vegetation. 



Here there are still plenty of Bush Wallabies {Halnmturns 

 ualabatits), and three were shot for me one morning. They are 

 wary and difficult to approach, and I rode all day in the bush 

 without seeing one. There are nests of wild European bees 

 also in the dead limbs of the gum-trees, and we felled a tree 

 and got out about thirty pounds of fine honey. 



Once we started a Kangaroo Rat, Hypsiprimnus, from its 

 round ball-like nest, which was lying on the ground under a 

 tuft of grass. It was like a large wren's nest. The rat is said 

 to be wary enough never to return to the nest when once dis- 

 turbed, but always to make a fresh one. 



At night we went out with a pack of terriers and mongrels 

 of all kinds, to hunt Bandicoots {Perameks nasuta). Only one 

 little terrier was of much use, but he was worth a great deal for 

 this kind of work. 



He has not been long off into the fern before we hear his 

 short sharp bark, and know he is on the scent. Off go all the 

 curs that have been hanging at our heels, lazy and doing nothing, 

 to join in the fun. At last a peculiar whining bark is heard, 

 and " Snap's " master knows that the Bandicoot is run to earth ; 

 the earth in this case being the hollow pipe running down the 

 stem of some fallen gum-tree. 



