Notices of New Books. 7695 



times a small pack would come sweeping by our camp fire at night 

 after liangaroo, and the chorus was then very fine when all else was 

 still. The wild bitch brings forth from four to six cubs, like the 

 domestic bitch, generally in a large hollow log or old tree root. Unlike 

 the wolf they rarely hunt in large packs, and if by chance four or five 

 are seen together, I fancy it is an old bitch and her cubs ; I have, 

 however, heard stock-riders say that they have sometimes seen a large 

 drove congregated over a dead carcase on the plains np country. They 

 appeared to be much more common in our forests during the winter 

 than in the summer, and this is also the case with the northern wolf. 

 We had no lack of them on the kangaroo ground, attracted, doubtless, 

 by the carcases that strewed the forests ; and if we ever left a dead 

 kangaroo out at night, it was pretty sure to be half eaten by morning. 

 I believe the wild dog was never known to attack man. Their chief 

 food appears to be kangaroo, sheep, all bush animals, and offal and 

 birds, and when kept on the chain they are ' death upon ' any fowls 

 which come within their reach. They are a fearful scourge to the 

 settlers on the large sheep runs up the country, for, strictly as the 

 fold may be guarded at night, a wild dog or two will occasionally 

 creep in and kill and maim many of the sheep, for, like the common 

 dog which takes to worrying sheep, they will bite and tear perhaps a 

 dozen to every one that they kill ; and this is not the worst, for the 

 sheep will often break fold, and, frightened to death, scattering them- 

 selves over the bush, may not be recovered again for days. There is 

 a kind of venom attached to the bite of the wild dog, for the wound 

 always festers, and sometimes mortification takes place : the bush 

 remedy is to rub a little salt into the bitten part. Like the Ishmaelite 

 of old, every man's hand is against them ; they are shot, snared and 

 run down by kangaroo dogs whenever they can be met with, but the 

 most certain way of getting rid of them is by poison. Take a small 

 piece of meat, cut a slit in it, and insert as much strychnine as will 

 cover the end of the blade of a penknife ; hang it up by a string to a 

 twig about a foot or eighteen inches from the ground. The dog never 

 goes far to die after taking this bait, but they will carry arsenic a long 

 way. They are difficult to shoot, being very wary, and there is no 

 regular method of hunting them carried on here; what are killed are 

 shot, worried by bush-dogs or poisoned. 



" The wild dog will often breed with the tame bush-dog, and the 

 cross is generally larger and savager than the original breed. I recol- 

 lect one morning, about daylight, going out of my tent and seeing a 

 wild bitch with all our dogs playing round her. She made off into 



