68 AUSTRALIA AND THE AUSTRALIANS. 



The blacks, by getting them when they are only a 

 few days old, can sometimes succeed. 



As a general rule, even they fail. When others 

 have tried, they have found that the wild nature will 

 prevail in time over the most careful domestication, 

 and the dingo will return to the forest and to the 

 native habits of his kind. 



Those we saw were in the Zoological Gardens of 

 Melbourne and Adelaide, and were just as handsome 

 and as innocent looking as those you see here in the 

 picture. 



A fox always looks as if there was something wrong 

 with his conscience ; the wolf, as if he has no con- 

 science, and does not desire any, for it might be terribly 

 in his way. The dingo looks as if he does not need 

 one, he is so innocent, so perfectly pure in all his in- 

 tentions, so affectionate. Look at him, and see if this 

 is not his character, so far as his countenance is con- 

 cerned, and yet, for a downright hypocritical scoun- 

 drel, he is by far the first of the three. He is more 

 cunning than the fox. His depredations upon the 

 sheep and poultry of the Australian farmer are so great 

 that a bounty of thirty shillings (about 87) per scalp 

 is offered by the Governments of some of the colonies. 



One or two of them have been known to kill as 

 many as forty sheep in a night. 



