2i 4 AUSTRALIAN AND TASMANIAN ANIMALS 



dingo. If this animal was not introduced by man, its occurrence in the native 

 Australian fauna, which includes no Carnivora, is simply inexplicable. 



In this connection it is specially worthy of note that Australian natives are 

 extremely fond of their dogs, and are adepts in rearing and training them. When 

 a native finds a litter of wild dingo puppies (for many of these dogs are completely 

 wild), they are carried to his hut, where they are as carefully brought up as the 

 children. In all cases these dogs are allowed to sleep in the huts, where they are 

 fed partly on meat and partly on fruit, and, as a rule, they are merely scolded, and 

 not beaten, for misbehaviour. Despite their imperfect training, they will only 

 obey their own master. They are used to guard the flocks and protect them from 

 the attacks of other dogs, and are adepts in tracking kangaroos and other native 

 animals, some of which they are able to run down. 



Wild dingoes are shy animals, which hide themselves by day, and hunt for 

 food at night, usually in parties of not more than four or five. Sometimes, indeed, 

 a pack numbering from about eighty to a hundred will collect, but in most cases 

 only females and their offspring are seen together, such family parties having well- 

 defined territories, that they themselves do not leave, and which they do not 

 permit other dingoes to enter. As a rule, the female produces from six to eight 

 puppies in a litter, but, in spite of their rapid rate of propagation, wild dingoes 

 have already disappeared from many parts of Australia. In the more thickly 

 populated parts of the country pure-bred dingoes are difficult to obtain, as these 

 animals pair freely with other clogs. In general colour dingoes vary from foxy 

 red to blackish, the bases of the long hairs being blackish in the darker varieties, 

 but generally yellow or white in those of lighter colour. The head and back are 

 usually dark yellowish red, frequently mingled with black, the under-parts are 

 lighter, and may be white, as is invariably the case with the tip of the tail, and in 

 some instances also the paws, but the muzzle is usually black. Although there is 

 considerable individual variation in regard to size and shape, the dingo is generally 

 a long-limbed dog, with a long and somewhat bushy tail, a broad muzzle, and up- 

 right ears relatively rather smaller than those of a wolf. The range of the dingo 

 is restricted to the Australian continent, throughout which it was to be found 

 half a century ago. 



The bat-fauna of Austi*alia is not numerous, and evidently 



Bats 



reached the country by way of the Malay Archipelago, as the majority 

 of the species are of an Asiatic type. This is well exemplified by the occurrence 

 in the wooded district of immense colonies of flying-foxes of the typical genus 

 Pteropus, which is represented by five species, namely, P. brunneus, P. gouldi, 

 P. conspicilatus, which ranges into New Guinea and the neighbouring islands, 

 P. poliocephalus, and P. scapvlaUis ; the last of these being characterised by the 

 narrowness of its molar teeth. Fruit-bats are also represented by two species, 

 N. robinsoni and N. papuanus of the curious tube-nosed bats forming the Austro- 

 Malay genus Nyctimene, the second of the two being common to New Guinea. 

 To the westward the bats of this genus are known to range as far as Celebes and 

 Timor, while to the east they inhabit the Solomon islands. In Australia they are 

 restricted to the tropical forest belt of Queensland, forming the north-east corner 

 of the continent, and the fauna of which is closely related to that of New Guinea.^ 



