7696 Notices of New Books. 



the forest when she saw me. One of our dogs followed her, and came 

 back after three days bitten all to pieces. The wild dogs are cowardly 

 by nature, but when brought to bay they make a hard fight of it, and 

 it will give a good bush- dog all his work to do to kill one single- 

 handed ; they snap like a wolf. When the distemper raged so fear- 

 fully a iavf years ago among the domestic dogs out here, it extended 

 also to the wild dogs, and scores were found dead in the bush. 



"Although called the untameable dog of New South Wales I have 

 seen them to all appearance as tame as the domestic dog, and I knew 

 a shepherd who had one which followed him about like a sheep dog. 

 But they are never to be trusted, nor do I fancy that they can ever be 

 made of any use to man, either for guarding or any other purpose. 

 The only bark I ever heard one utter was a kind of ' gap, gap,' after 

 a long howl." — p. 35. 



I search in vain for original notes on the Ornithorynchus or Echidna; 

 our author dismisses them in a very cursory manner, which is 

 the more disappointing as we look for original information concerning 

 these little-known animals from every competent observer who takes 

 up a pen. I pass on to a graphic passage on duck shooting by 

 night. 



" Of all the field sports in this colony I think I like a good night's 

 flight shooting the best. There is a charm in this silent, solitary 

 sport which I could never find in any other. When seated well in 

 the shade, by the side of some favourite feeding-ground, with the moon 

 iust on the wane, all is still, save the occasional cry of some night 

 bird as it rises from the neighbouring swamp, or the whistle of the 

 wings of a pair of ducks as they pass overhead, and the croaking of 

 hundreds of small frogs in concert, the deep clock of the bull-fiog 

 joining as it were in bass accompaniment. The slight ripple of the 

 clear water dances in the moon's silvery rays, when all at once ' whish,' 

 a splash in the water and a sharp ' quack, quack, quack,' warns the 

 shooter that a black duck has pitched, and the concert of frogs is 

 hushed in an instant. This is soon joined by others, and having 

 risen on the water three or four times to shake their feathers, and chased 

 each other aboutf or a few minutes, they settle down to feed. Now is a 

 moment of breathless suspense to the shooter. The gun is quietly raised, 

 but the birds at first are too far off or not well packed ; however, at 

 length he gets three or four in a line, and the heavy boom of the gun 

 breaks the stillness of the night, reverberating over the swamp with a 

 hundred echoes. It may be that some scores of birds were feeding 

 on the lagoon out of sight, which now rise like a clap of thunder, and 



