78 | The Carnivora. 
fully realise the indispensable character of the services rendered 
by the dog to pastoral man in an unsettled country such as 
all Europe was at no very remote period when wolves abounded, 
and as Australia now is. In the back bush of that great 
southern island, towards the very centre of which the white 
man’s flocks and herds are now spreading, one feels how diffi- 
cult it would be to maintain one’s position among hordes of 
savages and dingoes but for the watchful care of the dog. 
To those who are acquainted only with the long established 
and generally fenced in “runs” of the Darling Downs—for 
instance, about Dalby and Warwick—it may seem that I exagge- 
rate the importance of our canine friend as a guardian of sheep 
in some of the incidents I shall have to describe. But this impor- 
tance could be brought home very forcibly to anyone who might 
be put in charge of a flock at a hut ten miles or sofrom the head 
station and any other dwelling, surrounded by dense forest, with 
patches of “scrub” interspersed, and the earth covered with 
grass as high as the back of a sheep. 
It fell to my lot to be told off to take a flock at a hut 
so situated in circumstances scarcely calculated to render 
the prospect inviting. The former shepherd at that hut 
had been murdered by the blacks not long before, and a 
large number of his sheep driven off by them or dispersed 
in the bush, where the dingoes, having had a fine time 
among such easy victims, were more than ever disposed to 
consider sheep their lawful prey. Once a week the ration 
carrier would come round with my supply of 12lb. of salt 
beef, 8lb. of flour, ¢lb. of tea, and 2lb. of sugar; but, owing to 
the fact that he always came while I was away with the sheep, 
I did not enjoy the good fortune of seeing a white face for 
amonth. It is the shepherd’s duty, after a hasty meal, to let 
his flocks out of the pens as early as possible in the morning, 
and follow them into the bush, guiding them by means of 
his dogs in the direction he wishes them to take, so as to 
avoid feeding over the same ground on two consecutive days. 
This is by nomeans the easy task those may imagine who “sit 
