EFFECT OF SETTLEMENT UPON INDIGENOUS VEGETATION. 217 
Phillip Island, will occur to every one. And many examples of 
local extinction have already occurred. The brush-turkey, was I 
believe found in the Illawarra district, but none are found there 
now. And only the shy and retiring habits of the lyre bird have 
kept it from sharing the same fate, it is so hunted and persecuted 
by people, who, when they get a specimen, cut the tail off and 
throw the rest of the bird away. Animals good for food or for 
other purposes, or noxious from their destroying domestic animals, 
grass, or cultivated crops, will naturally be the first exterminated. 
In the first group of animals, the dingo is the one most 
destroyed. The destruction which even one dingo will work 
among a flock of sheep is so great, that it is very desirable that 
they should be destroyed and in most parts of the Colony a reward 
of £1 is given for the scalp and tail of each dingo killed. This 
has had the result of making them very scarce in all but the most 
inaccessible parts of New South Wales. 
Among the second class the kangaroo family is pre-eminent. 
These animals not only destroy grass which should support valu- 
able stock, but their skins are a marketable commodity and fetch | 
a good price, and so it is doubly profitable to destroy them. The 
kangaroo-hunter gets a bounty for the scalp of each and is able to 
sell the skins at a high figure. So far indeed, the process of exter- 
mination has not begun to lessen their numbers very greatly, but 
the time will come when kangaroos will be, if not extinct, at least 
very rare. 
The destruction of the native fauna must have a very marked 
effect on the plants. For example, the extinction of the Entomo- 
phagous group of marsupials might result in the increased numbers 
of certain insects on which they chiefly lived, and these insects 
might be hurtful to plants as eating them either in the larve or 
imago state; or beneficial as fertilisers of some plants which 
would naturally produce larger quantities of seed, and thus gain 
an advantage over their compeers. Or the destruction of the 
Sarcophagous marsupials and birds of prey would allow the Ento- 
mophagus group to increase, and in this case the insects would 
