Dingoes. 



CHAPTER XII. 



Some Specimens of Australian Fauna and Flora. 



Marsupials — The ' Tasmanian Devil'— Dingoes — Kangaroo Hunting — The Lyre-Bird— Bower-Bird — 

 The Giant Kingfisher — Emu Hunting— Snakes — The Shark— Alleged Monotony of Vegetation — 

 Tropical Vegetation of Coast— The Giant Gum — The Rostrata— The Mallee Scrub— Flowers 

 and Shrubs. 



NO large carnivorous animals roam over the Australian plains, to en- 

 danger the life of man or to destroy his flocks and herds. Australia 

 is the mother country of the meek and mild marsupial, which is found in 

 abundance, varying in size from the great red ' old man ' kangaroo, which 

 stands between six and seven feet high, to the marsupial mouse, which will 

 sleep in a good sized pill-box. There is the stupid, heavy wombat, which 

 seems a mere animated ball of flesh, which burrows in the ground, and 

 which apparently cannot move a mile an hour when it appears on the 

 surface, though its pace is really better than that. On the other hand, 

 there is the elegant flying fox, or rather flying opossum, which by means 

 of a bat-like membrane glides through the air at night, astonishing the 

 traveller, who sees hundreds of large forms sweep noiselessly by. Great 

 fruit-eaters' are these flying foxes, and there is tribulation when a Horde 

 visits a settled district. The native bear, as a marsupial sloth is termed, 

 is the most innocent-looking of animals, and the most harmless, feeding on 

 the leaves of the gum. It swarms "in the various colonies. In the next 



