182 WILD ANIMALS. 



In a late number of the weekly paper, Colonies and India, there 

 is tlie following paragraph respecting the employment of the 

 animal in Queensland. " Camels versus Horses. — The heavier 

 animal of burden is preferred to the lighter one in the back 

 districts of Queensland, where the police are being supplied with 

 camels, and pastoralists in the north and north-west are employing 

 them in preference to horses for the conveyance of rations and 

 water to out-stations and well-sinking parties. A number of 

 camels are employed on the Hergott and Strangways Eailway 

 works, and the other day the resident engineer, Mr. Mann, 

 inspected, passed, and took delivery of fifteen camels imported by 

 Mr. T. H. Scott (whose name is familiar to all South Australians 

 in connection with exhibitions in divers countries on the Buce- 

 phalaus) . The camels are from the Bikanier district of Rajpootana, 

 where the soil, climate, and herbage are very similar to those of 

 the northern country, the pasturage being chiefly salsolaceous and 

 closely allied in nutritive properties to the Colonial salt blue and 

 cotton bush. The only drawback to the extensive employment of 

 camels is the initial expense, which, as a matter of course, is not 

 light. But it should be remembered that camel-breeding is highly 

 profitable, and offers far better returns than can be obtained from 

 horse stock. The substitution of camels for horses for all heavy 

 work in the interior can only be a question of time, and as the 

 demand .increases those who go in for breeding early will reap a 

 rich reward." 



At St. Eoque, near Pisa, the camel has been acclimatized for 

 several centuries, the original stock, according to tradition, having 

 been brought over by the Crusaders, but more likely it was intro- 

 duced about the middle of the sixteenth century ; but the breed 

 has become degenerated, dwarfed, and miserable-looking, the fact 

 being evident that the animals are constructed and constituted to 

 thrive only on a dry, sandy soil, and when transported from such 

 elements they lose many of their peculiar uses, and do not answer 

 the expectations formed of them. 



The whole family of Camelidce belong to the ruminant order of 

 mammalia. The camel of the East, and the llama, guanaco, and 

 vicuna of the New "World, are the only existing species. The 



