CANIS DINGO. 157 



brought at some remote period from some other country by human 

 savage races arriving to constitute the population of AustraHa. Talking 

 the case of the Dingo, it was certain that the native dogs of continental 

 Asia were not clearly related, to the extent of specific identity, with 

 the Australian one, nor could any near analogues be found elsewhere ; 

 while on the other hand the facts are beyond dispute: (1st) that the 

 Dingo is singularly averse to domestication and man's society when 

 compared with other dogs ; (2nd) that it is extremely abundant, witli 

 little or no variation, over the whole of Australia ; and (3rd) that the 

 further you go from human haunts, near the coast, into the desert 

 interior, the more numerous do the Dingoes appear, indicating that 

 the species was a really indigenous one. 



" The announcement, many years ago, of my recognition of bones and 

 teeth of the Dingo in the Pliocene '^I'ertiary strata of Colac and other 

 Victorian localities, in company with similarly mineralized remains of 

 Thylacoleo, Diprotodon, Nototlterium, Frocoptodou, and other extinct 

 genera, therefore excited great interest, as proving that the Dingo was 

 really one of the most ancient of the indigenous mammals of the 

 country, and abounded as now most probably before man himself 



appeared Our present species, although still livmg in great 



numbers, I have no doubt dates from the Pliocene Tertiary time, and I 

 find, on the most minute comparison and measurements, no difference 

 between the fossil and recent individuals, either of the adult age, or of 

 the younger periods before the milk-teeth were shed to give place to 

 the permanent molar teeth." 



As to the bearing of these facts, concerning the antiquity of the 

 Dingo, on the question as to its origin, we woidd remark that while they 

 show that the animal existed in Australia at an extremely remote period, 

 they are not decisive as to whether it was introduced by man, or (if it 

 was introduced by him) as to whether it is a race formed in Australia 

 from domesticated breeds, such as now exist in adjacent regions, or 

 whether such latter breeds are themselves derived from the Dingo on 

 its march towards the Australian continent. A recent explorer, Mr. 

 Charles Morris Woodford, expresses * his own judgment as follows :— 

 * See ' A Naturalist among the Head-hunters ' (1890), p. 54. 



