306 Animal Life 
hurries along, half running, half cantering, halting not till within a few feet of 
its cavernous home, where it stands and listens—not looks—for the fancied or real 
danger, those short ears never failing to catch the slightest sound, and invariably 
suggesting the bowels of the earth as the only safe retreat. 
The picture awakens within me reminiscences of a somewhat ludicrous nature, 
and at the same time serves to acquaint the reader with the relative size of an 
average wombat. While camped ‘way up the Big River, behind Mount Torbrek, 
we ran short of “tucker,” the bushman’s name for food, and having twelve miles to 
travel across ranges, as rough as they are steep, in order to procure a fresh supply, 
we decided to replenish our larder—a loose canvas bag strung up in the deep shade 
of a silver wattle—with the hind-quarters of a wombat, and so postpone our monthly 
visit to the store till a later date. 
On previous occasions, bent on a similar errand, we had visited a certain gully 
Ro fA UR OL & e 
THE HAUNT OF THE WOMBAT. 
branching off a rapid mountain creek, which was hemmed in by belts of dog-wood 
serub and flowering lightwoods, and bore the title of “Wild Dog Creek,’ and it was 
from this gully that we were, I believe without exception, fortunate in returning to 
camp with at least a wombat, and sometimes a wallaby as well. Thus, encouraged 
by success in the past, we again sought the same locality and once more were favoured 
by fortune, for my dog—a smooth-haired collie—very soon struck the scent of a 
wombat, followed, and worried the animal with such persistence that it at length took 
refuge in the gigantic hollow of a fallen mesmate tree, levelled by the violence of storm 
and tempest or the effect of old age and decaying roots. This position proved so 
invincible, that the dog’s most strenuous attempts to dislodge the wombat were quite 
unavailing. Determined to possess ourselves of game so nearly within our reach, we 
set to work in the following manner: Striking a match and holding it as far into the 
