64 WILD LIKE I.\ NEW ZEALAND. 



have reached." Hrunner. who visited tin- \Yest Coast a few j 

 later, makes a similar statement in his Journal. The early settler* 

 rmlil not distinguish between Maori dogs and these wild, half- 

 l)i IM! OUPI, Thus H. Cillies. writing in after-years of the early da\> 

 of the Otago settlement, which was formed in 1848, says, " For some 

 years after the settlers arrived here the wild doir was the terror 

 of the flockmaster, and the object of his inveterate host ilitv. " 

 W. D. Murison, formerly editor of the Otago Dnihj Tinn*. writing: 

 at the same period (1877), tells how in 1 Sf>S he and his brother 

 took up country in the Maniototo Plains, which they reaehed by 

 (he valley of the Shag River. The wild dogs were very trouble- 

 some. The first was caught by a kangaroo-dog, apparentlv im- 

 ported from Australia for the purpose of hunting them. " This 

 particular wild dog was yellow in colour, and so was the second 

 killed ; but the bulk of those ultimately destroyed by us were 

 black-and-white, showing a marked mixture of the eollie. The 

 yellow dogs looked like a distinct breed. They were low-set, with 

 short pricked ears, broad forehead, sharp snout, and bushy tail. 

 Indeed, those acquainted with the dingo professed to see little 

 difference between that animal and the New Zealand yellow wild 

 dog. It may be remarked, however, that most of the other dogs 

 we killed, although variously coloured, possessed nearly all the 

 other characteristics of the yellow dog. The wild dogs wen 

 generally to be met with in twos and threes; they fed chiefly on 

 quail, ground-larks, young ducks, and occasionally on pigs. On 

 one occasion, when riding through the Idahurn Valley, we came 

 across four wild dogs baiting a sow and her litter of young ones 

 in a drv. tussocky lagoon. To our annoyance our own do^s joined 

 in the attack upon the sow, and the wild dogs got away without 

 our Celling one of them. ... In all we destroyed fifty-two 

 do<jx between September. IS.'s. and December, 1800." 



Taylor White, writing in l>'s!l. says. "I consider these dojs 

 entirely distinct from the Kurop.-iin dL r . l''or the wild dogs met 

 with on the Waimakariri I'iver. in the alpine ranges of Canterbury, 

 during the year ISHfi. were in colour and markings identical with 

 those found in the alpine region of Lake Wakatipu in ISfiO. a dis- 

 tance of several hundred miles apart. There seems little room to 

 doubt that they were an original Maori dog. Tin- fact of their 

 wanting the two tan spots over the eyes mostly seen in E 



