ESTUARINE CROCODILE 261 



of these families. Great efforts have been made in 

 Queensland to reduce the number of grass-eating wild 

 animals (kangaroos and allied forms), and large sums of 

 money have been wasted in efforts to destroy them whole- 

 sale. It is almost entirely owing to private effort that the 

 numbers of these animals have been reduced, and in some 

 localities exterminated. It was hoped by means of a wire 

 fence of immense length to prevent the rabbits from 

 spreading from New South Wales northwards, but this 

 was an utter failure, as might easily have been foreseen. 

 The rabbits have migrated into South Queensland, where 

 they are numerous enough, and they will spread over the 

 entire country in spite of the drastic penalties inflicted for 

 such offences as permitting rabbits to escape from captivity 

 or wilfully turning them loose, amounting to as much as 

 ;^ioo for a repeated offence. 



The dingoes are far less numerous in Queensland than 

 they are on the opposite side of the continent. They 

 have been shot, trapped, and poisoned, till comparatively 

 few remain. 



Crocodiles infest most of the big rivers in the northern 

 parts of the colony, but these also have been much thinned 

 by the hand of man. It is asserted that they will seize 

 and drown bullocks and horses ; but no such incident ever 

 came to my knowledge, nor have I ever known of a fatal 

 accident to human beings ; yet some of these crocodiles 

 are quite eighteen feet long. The average of fully grown 

 reptiles is fourteen or fifteen feet. The species is the same 

 as is found in the Port Darwin district, the estuarine 

 crocodile, which it is asserted in " popular natural histories," 

 often goes out to sea, and is rarely found far from the 

 mouths of rivers. In Australia I have never seen or heard 

 of its being found in the sea; and though it mostly 

 frequents the lowest reaches of rivers, it is often found 

 almost up to the sources of many streams ; and the only 

 limits to its wanderings into the interior seems to be the 

 shallowness of the water in the upper streams. Fish 

 forms the bulk of its food, and though it probably often 

 surprises ducks and other aquatic birds, I very much 



