TASMANIAN WOLF 



5709 



TASSO 



The total mileage of the railroad systems in 

 Tasmania amounts to about 620 miles, mostly 

 owned by the state. Macadamized roads, kept 

 in good repair, run throughout the island. The 

 chief towns are Hobart, with 40,000, and 

 Launceston, with 22,500, inhabitants. The gov- 

 ernment of Tasmania is similar to that of the 

 other Australian states. There is a governor 

 appointed by the Crown, a legislative council 

 of eighteen members, chosen for six years, and 

 a house of assembly, whose members are chosen 

 for three years. 



Van Diemeris Land, as Tasmania was first 

 named, was discovered by Tasman, the Dutch 

 navigator, in 1642, and named after his patron 

 Van Diemen, governor of the Dutch East In- 

 dies. It was first settled in 1802 when a party 

 of twenty-five convicts with several officials 

 from New South Wales landed on the south 

 coast. Little is known of the aborigines of 

 Tasmania; they are extinct, but are supposed 

 to have been of Australian origin. F.ST.A. 



Consult Murray's Tasmanian Rivers, Lakes 

 and Flowers; Smith's A Naturalist in Tasmania. 



Related Subjects. The reader is referred to 

 the following articles in these volumes : 

 Australia Miocene Period 



Hobart Tasmanian Wolf 



TASMANIAN WOLF, tazma'nian wulj, 

 THE; also called ZEBRA WOLF, THYCALINE and 

 POUCHED DOG, is a pouched animal (see MAR- 

 SUPIALS) which resembles a wolf or wild dog 

 in appearance. It is a native of Tasmania, an 

 island belonging to the Australian Common- 

 wealth. The Tasmanian wolf is usually about 

 forty inches long, but sometimes attains a 

 greater size. The short fur is grayish-brown, 

 and there are black stripes across the back 

 much like those of a zebra. The nose is long 

 and sharp, and the tail is tapering. These ani- 

 mals were common in Tasmania in early days, 

 but the European settlers succeeded in driv- 

 ing them into the mountains, after great depre- 

 dations had been committed in sheepfolds and 

 poultry yards. They are nocturnal in their 

 habits, hiding in deep burrows or gulches in the 

 daytime, from which they make nightly raids 

 for food. 



TASSO, tas'o, TORQUATO (1544-1595), one of 

 the greatest of the Italian poets, was born at 

 Sorrento. His father, a fifteenth century poet, 

 took him to Rome at the age of ten and there 

 gave him careful training in literature and his- 

 tory. At that time he showed evidence of a 

 remarkable memory and could recite long por- 

 tions from the works of Greek and Latin poets. 



TASSO 



He was sent at the age of sixteen to the Uni- 

 versity of Padua, Italy, to study law, but within 

 a year produced a romantic poem in twelve 

 cantos, entitled Rinaldo. This remarkable 

 work, dealing with the legends of Charlemagne, 

 surprised and gratified the Italian reading pub- 

 lic but enraged 

 the father, who 

 wished the boy to 

 confine his energy 

 to the law. How- 

 ever, public ad- 

 miration was so 

 great that the 

 young poet was 

 at length per- 

 mitted by his 

 father to devote 

 his time to liter- 

 ary study, and on 

 invitation of the 

 authorities at the University of Bologna went 

 to that institution. In 1562 he had to leave the 

 school because unjustly accused of writing cer- 

 tain bitter" satires against the professors. He 

 then returned to the University of Padua, 

 where his admiration for Vergil's poetry be- 

 came so intense that he determined to write an 

 epic along the lines of the Iliad. 



At this time the Turks were harassing the 

 Hungarians and the Italians, and the popular 

 talk of another crusade against those invaders 

 suggested to him the idea of basing the epic 

 upon the adventures of Godfrey de Bouillon in 

 a crusade to Jerusalem. Thus began the fa- 

 mous poem, Jerusalem Delivered, which, after 

 Dante's Divine Comedy, is given rank as one 

 of the greatest epics in the Italian language. 

 While he was engaged in planning and writing 

 portions of this long poem, he found a patron 

 in Cardinal d'Este, who took him to one of the 

 centers of Italian culture, the court of Ferrara. 

 There, amidst magnificent surroundings, noted 

 men, beautiful women and his own love affairs, 

 he gained a multitude of experiences which he 

 afterwards wrote into his epic. A quarrel with 

 his patron sent him forth penniless in 1571, 

 but Duke Alfonso of Ferrara sheltered him, 

 and under the patronage of this nobleman he 

 produced in 1573 Aminta, possibly the most 

 beautiful of all Italian pastoral plays. 



In April, 1575, he announced that his Jeru- 

 salem Delivered was finished, but before pub- 

 lishing it desired its examination by a body of 

 churchmen lest the charge of heresy or infi- 

 delity be brought against him. The churchmen 



