Dec. 19, 1889.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



427 



DOGS, DINGOES AND KURIS. 



THERE is no point more undecided in natural history, 

 or more difficult to decide, than the origin of the 

 commonest of all domestic animals, the dog. The prob- 

 lem to be solved may be briefly stated thus: Firstly, is 

 the dog a wild animal which has been domesticated? and, 

 secondly, does it revert to a wild animal if it ceases to be 

 associated with man? 



There are, of course, many wild animals of the dog 

 family, such as wolves, hyenas, jackals, foxes, and so on. 

 But none of these become dogs' by being domesticated. 

 They always have been wild animals and they always 

 will be wild animals. The dog, on the other hand, has 

 been a domestic auimal at least as long as there are any 

 historical records of human life; and even with the 

 remains of pre-historic man are found the remains of 

 pre-historic, but domesticated, dogs. The lake-dwellers 

 of Switzerland, who lived in the "bone age," whenever 

 that may have been, had dogs with which they hunted 

 the bear and the deer. On the other hand, there is no 

 instance known, as far as I am aware, of dogs having 

 ever existed in the feral state. 



The Eskimo dog was at one time supposed to be a wild 

 dog brought into subjection by the Arctic races. But 

 Lieutenant Schwatka shows not only that it is not a wild 

 dog, but that it is not even a distinct type of tame dog. 

 The Eskimo dogs, he says, include all sorts and condi- 

 tions of dogs, and do not materially differ from the dogs 

 in any American or European town. 



In the course of my travels, I have come across three 

 kinds of so-called wild dogs, and I shall be happy to 

 describe them for the readers of Forest and Stream. 



In many parts of New Zealand the hills are infested 

 with "wild dogs," which attack the sheep and often in- 

 flict great loss on the farmers more by harrying and ter- 

 rifying the flock than by what they eat. The shepherds 

 shoot them or poison them whenever they can, and 

 liberal rewards are given for all that are brought in. I 

 have seen numbers of these brutes and have shot a good 

 many myself. They are merely the progeny of dogs 

 •which have strayed away from sheep stations or taken to 

 the wilds from starvation when driven from some farm. 

 They are nearly always a cross of the collie, or else of 

 the pig-dog, which is a bull-mastiff or a large bull- terrier, 

 and though they develop great size, strength and ferocity 

 from their predatory life, they never lose their domestic 

 characteristics. They are easily tamed, and are not then 

 to be distinguished from the dogs ordinarily found about 

 i a sheep station or a farm. 



Mr. Denton, an American gentlemen who made the 

 tour of Australasia some years ago, and has published an 

 amusing book upon it, makes great fun of the vast num- 

 ber of dogs which surround the visitor at every New Zea- 

 land homestead, and even — so he says — invade the cars 

 and other places from which dogs are usually excluded. 

 He exaggerates the facts a good deal, and fails altogether 

 to see the good use of them; but there is something in 

 what he says. Australia and New Zealand have more 

 sheep than any other countries iu the world, and New 

 Zealand, being a small and fertile country, has its flocks 

 closer together than Australia. But where there are 

 sheep there must be dogs, for the whole management of 

 the flock is done by dogs. Every shepherd and every 

 man about a station has at least a couple of dogs at his 

 heels, without which he would be perfectly helpless. 

 Then a great many additional dogs are employed to kill 

 rabbits and wild pigs and other enemies of the sheep 

 farmer, and in some localities the boundaries of the run 

 are kept entirely by dogs, which prevent the flock from 

 mixing, though the fences are open where the roads pass 

 through. Hence, it will be readily understood, there 

 actually are a great many dogs about the homestead 

 when the men are all in from their work. But there is 

 not a single useless dog among them, and many of them 

 are worth from twenty -five to a hundred dollars, accord- 

 ing to their pedigree and their capabilities with sheep. 



It is the strays from these that have produced the 

 "wild dogs" of the hills, which are only wild in the sense 

 that they do not belong to anybody and do not live any- 

 where in particular. In that sense there are multitudes 

 of wild dogs in every American city except, perhaps, 

 New York, which is singularly free from stray dogs. 



There is, or was, another kind of dog in New Zealand, 

 which has a somewhat better claim to be called wild. I 

 allude to the Kuri or Maori dog, at one time supposed to 

 be an indigenous animal. When the colony was occu- 

 pied by the British fifty years ago, the Kuri was very 

 common among the Maoris and was the only dog in the 

 country. The Maoris ate its flesh and used its skin for 

 robes or mats. I have often seen the Kuri in the early 

 days, but now there is nothing to be seen of it but the 

 skin— a good dog skin mat being an heirloom and a treas- 

 ure in the families of the chiefs. I never heard that the 

 Kuri was at any time a wild animal, and though it was 

 commonly called the Maori dog, I am convinced that it 

 was merely the progeny of European dogs put ashore by 

 Captain Cook or some of the early navigators. The fact 

 of the Kuri appearing to furnish a distinct and uniform 

 type, as it undoubtedly did, is easily accounted for by 

 the very probable supposition that only a couple of dogs 

 or so were landed, for in those days a ship did not visit 

 the islands once in twenty years or moie, and that all the 

 Kuris in the country came of one stock. They were 

 small rough-haired dogs, black or bluish black, some- 

 times spotted with yellowish or rusty white, with a long 

 muzzle, cocked ears and a thick tail, ugly little brutes on 

 the whole and certainly not assignable to any known 

 European breed. Yet there is practically no doubt that 

 they were the offspring of some mongrels brought from 

 Europe; and there is not a trace of evidence of their ever- 

 having been otherwise than domesticated. They were 

 not at all numerous at the time of the European settle- 

 ment, and after that they were soon crossed out of all 

 recognition by the settlers' dogs, except in the remoter- 

 settlements, where the type survived until quite within 

 recent years. 



I now come to the Australian dingo, the most disputed 

 of all "wild dogs." This curious animal has been com- 

 monly assured to be the progeny of a domestic dog gone 

 wild,' for a single reason. It is the only mammal on the 

 continent of Australia or the island of Tasmania that is 

 not marsupial. All the others, whether herbivorous or 

 carnivorous, are pouched animals, a peculiarity which 

 distinguishes them from all other creatures whatsoever 

 in a very decided way. They form, in fact, a separate 

 section of animated nature, of which only one or two in- 



stances are found in any other part of the world. Hence 

 it is contended that the dingo, being something like a 

 dog and not being marsupial, must have been introduced 

 from other countries; but no such animal exists or has 

 ever been described in any other country; therefore it 

 must be the wild descendant of dogs brought by the 

 early navigators. 



This is not very logical reasoning, nor is it at all con- 

 vincing to me. On the contrary, I think the evidence 

 against the dingo being a dog gone wild, is overwhelm- 

 ing. In the first place, it is not really very much like a 

 dog. It is a small animal, no larger than a coyote, but 

 quite dill erently proportioned, being longer iu the legs 

 and shorter in the back, yellow in color, with a pointed 

 muzzle, pricked ears, and" a stiff brush tail qivite unlike 

 the bushy tail of the collie dog, which, in general, it re- 

 sembles more than any other. Secondly, it is, or was, 

 found all over Australia and Tasmania, and evei-y where 

 it presents the same appearance and characteristics. 

 Now, Australia is a very large country, as large as 

 Europe, and a vast proportion of it is uninhabited. It 

 was only discovered two hundred and fifty years ago, 

 and the first navigators founded no settlements and made 

 no explorations. It was not until the latter part of the 

 last century that the British came and brought their dogs 

 with them. At that time dingoes abounded, and the 

 settlers had the greatest difficulty in protecting their 

 flocks from their ravages. If, therefore, the dingo is the 

 progeny of domestic dogs introduced by the discoverers, 

 it must have assumed the wild form and spread all over 

 the continent, notwithstanding that large rivers and vast 

 tracts of waterless desert intervene, within one hundred, 

 and fifty years. This is quite incredible, and in my 

 mind, it settles the question of whether or not the dingo 

 is a dog. 



I have seen great numbers of dingoes in parts of Aus- 

 tralia very remote from one another: but I never saw the 

 slightest difference among them. One may be a little 

 bigger than another, or a little darker or lighter yellow 

 than the common herd, but the animal is just as distinct 

 a type of animal as a fox or a jackal. The dingo is most 

 numerous in Queensland, which is sometimes jocularly 

 called Dingoland, the last of the Australian colonies to 

 be settled and still a very wild country in parts. It is 

 sometimes so fierce there that it will invade homesteads 

 and even carry off children; though, generally speaking, 

 it is a cowardly animal, skulking away from a man, and 

 commiting its" ravages by galloping through a flock of 

 sheep, snapping right and left with a bite that is almost 

 always fatal, and driving the sheep in terror in all direc- 

 tions. It is a nocturnal animal, and would never come 

 out in the daytime, I believe, unless compelled by hunger. 

 It seems always to be on the verge of starvation. The 

 shepherds and boundary riders commonly carry a quarter 

 of mutton, well dosed with strychnine, at their saddle 

 bow, and as they ride along toward evening, they cut off 

 pieces and throw them on the ground. If there are any 

 dingoes about, they are pretty sure to find these tempting 

 morsels and to be found stretched out with intense rigor 

 mortis not very far off next morning. 



Away in western Australia, at the other extremity of 

 the continent, dingoes are also found, looking and be- 

 having exactly as they do in the east; that is to say, look- 

 ing and behaving like wild animals indigenous to the 

 country. 



One of the tests which has been sometimes propounded 

 to prove whether an animal living in a wild state is iden- 

 tical with the domestic variety, is whether the two will 

 interbreed or not. This, however, is in my opinion quite 

 delusive. It depends entirely on the extent to which they 

 will interbreed. I have known a dog and a fox to inter- 

 breed. A cross between a pheasant and a barndoor- 

 fowl is common enough. Yet no one would say that 

 a fox is a wild dog, or a pheasant is a wild barn- 

 door fowl. None of these mules have any progeny, 

 which is the surest evidence of miscegenation. In this 

 way dingoes occasionally interbreed with domestic dogs, 

 and the cross is not by any means a bad animal. But the 

 process goes no further than that. The Australian dogs 

 do not become half-dingoes, neither do the dingoes [be- 

 come half -dogs. In New Zealand, on the contrary, the 

 so-called wild dogs breed freely with domestic dogs, 

 while the Kuri, the so-called Maori dog, as I have already 

 said, is altogether merged in the various European 

 breeds. 



Then, there is another ingenious theory that the bark 

 of the dog is an imitation of the human voice and that 

 wild dogs do not bark, though they soon learn to bark if 

 brought into the society of mankind. Upon that theory, 

 dingoes ought to learn to bark because they constantly 

 hear dogs barking and men talking at the stations. But 

 they do not. They have a peculiar cry of their own , more 

 of a howl than a bark, and this never varies, as far as I 

 am aware. I have known several instances of dingoes 

 being tamed , but they did not bark. They kept their 

 own cry or else were silent. A friend of mine, an officer 

 on a man-of-war, caught a young- dingo in the far north 

 of Queensland, and brought it up on the ship. It became 

 a great pet of the sailors and conducted itself in a most 

 exemplary fashion, though always rather too ready to 

 snap and worry with its formidable teeth. The first time 

 I saw it, my attention was at once attracted by its appear- 

 ance. 



" What an extraordinary looking dog," I said to my 

 friend. " What sort of breed is that? " 



" It is not a dog at all," he replied. " It is a dingo that 

 I got in Queensland." 



I then examined the animal carefully, and the more I 

 studied it, on many occasions, the more convinced I was 

 that it was a purely wild animal, not domesticated nor 

 capable of being domesticated, in the proper sense of the 

 word, but merely tamed by kind treatment from youth, 

 just as foxef , wolves and even lions and tigers are some- 

 times tamed. The dingo has a foul smell, which also, I 

 think, goes to prove its wild origin. 



The notion that the " bow wow" of the dog is the 

 result of an effort on the part of the faithful animal, 

 through many ages, to imitate the voice of man, is very 

 taking from the sentimental point of view; but I should 

 doubt if there is a shadow of scientific authority for it. 

 As well might it be said that the " moo moo " of a cow, 

 or the "baa baa" of a sheep, or the "meaow vieaow" 

 of a tomcat is an imitation of the human voice. No 

 dog that ever was pupped can imitate the human voice 

 half so well as a jackal, for the very reason that the 

 jackal does not say " bow wow woiv," but articulates in 



all kinds of notes and cadences, like a. human being 

 under strong emotion. 



While on the subject of dogs at the antipodes, I should 

 like to mention a fact which is probably not known in 

 America, but which is so remarkable as to be worthy of 

 some scientific attention here. It is that, notwithstand- 

 ing the great number of dogs in Australasia, and not- 

 withstanding that a large part of that territory lien in the 

 torrid zone— the mean temperatme being higher at Adel- 

 aide than at any other spot in the British Empire — there 

 has never yet been a case of hydrophobia there. I be- 

 lieve I am right in saying, that the disease is also un- 

 known in South Africa; and from many inquiries I have 

 made, I am inclined to think it is entirely confined to the 

 Northern Hemisphere. 



This belief was held so firmly for many years in the 

 colonies, that no precautions were taken against the in- 

 troduction of hydrophobia. Since the introduction of 

 other diseases, however, from which the Southern Hemis- 

 phere had previously been supposed so be exempt, a six 

 months' quarantine of dogs has been established, and is 

 enforced with inflexible strictness. When the Earl of 

 Onslow came some months ago to New Zealand as Gov- 

 ernor, the Countess pleaded hard to have the garden of 

 Government House proclaimed a quarantine ground, so 

 that she might not be separated from her pet poodle. 

 The authorities, however, were inexorable, and the vice- 

 regal lap-dog had to go to the island set apirt for that 

 purpose, like any common cur. Edward Wakefield. 



THREE DAYS IN JAMAICA. 



JAMAICA has been called a land of birds Without song, 

 flowers without perfume, and women without virtue. 

 We visited the island in a fruit ship to see tropical scen- 

 ery, and found the true picture at Port Antonio, more 

 real than the imagined — mountain and valley clothed 

 with fruits and flowers in green and gold; dense foliage 

 from the water's edge running " over the hills and far- 

 away;" the cocoa palms in their plumage of oriental- 

 like fern, saluting with solemn grace those who sought 

 their welcome shade. The cocoa palm grows luxuriantly 

 on the shore, in the valley and on the mountain. 



Jamaica is all mountain and valley. The mountains 

 and valleys are one mass of foliage. The white houses 

 of the estate owners may be seen perched on hills over- 

 looking the estates, monarchs of all they survey. The 

 chief item of export is the banana, several fleets of 

 steamers being employed in carrying this fruit to United 

 States markets. Sugar, limes and oranges are cultivated 

 for export. The estates are owned by single individuals 

 and by companies who own the steamers that carry the 

 products of the island. The negroes of the island carry 

 everything, including fruits, on their heads. We saw an 

 umbrella with the inside to the gale carried on a ne- 

 gress's head, and we are told that the first wheelbarrow 

 was carried on the head. It is a pleasing sight to see 

 thirty or forty colored lads and lasses loading a fruit 

 ship, carrying bunches of bananas on their heads, chant- 

 ing ditties, lightly dancing, with their figures presenting 

 the fine arched appearance that the custom of carrying 

 everything on the head gives. The natives are polite 

 and cheerful. We were told that on Sunday those com- 

 ing from country places to church carried their clothes 

 and shoes till uear the town, where they washed in the 

 river, and then donned their Sunday's best and marched 

 '■ all dressed to heavenly rest." 



The whites on the island are open-handed in then hos- 

 pitality, admitting strangers freely to their houses with- 

 out introduction, and entertaining them liberally. Our 

 host's house at Port Antonio was built on a hill over- 

 hanging the town, reached by a white shell lane, and 

 embowered by tropical fruit trees, with sufficient space 

 on the plateau to form an escarpment around the house, 

 from which a view of the town, harbor and bay could be 

 had in front, and of the mountains inland. The cool 

 verandahs looked out on the deep blue sea. Our dinner- 

 consisted of mountain mullet, turtle steaks and turtle 

 eggs, ring-tailed pigeon and cocoauut pie, with abundant 

 choice of yams, bread fruit, okra, tchaw-tchaw, plan- 

 tain, banana fritters, guava jelly, pineapple, jelly and 

 blanc mange of arrowroot. 



At St. Ann's Bay, wdiere we loaded some fruit, Mr. 

 Gordon Black, chief of constabulary, in the neighbor- 

 hood of whose house we photographed some tropical 

 scenes, took us in hand, and with his wife and daughters 

 procured us cuttings of tropical shrubs, flowers and ferns 

 to raise in our vineries at home. Negro boys were made 

 to climb palm trees and procure us green cocoanuts for 

 refreshing drinks of cocoaunt milk, which is drunk with 

 Jamaica rum. A negro boy with red cap, climbing the 

 delicate stem of a palm tree and peering his head through 

 the great palm leaves, as he forces the cocoanuts from 

 their nests, is a sight to be remembered. Mr. Black in- 

 troduced us to the merchants of St. Ann's Bay and put us 

 in the way of making a fortune out of the innumerable 

 commercial products of the island. 



The roads of Jamaica are composed of a hard white 

 shell-like stone. They are clean and pleasant to look at. 

 There were no flies toward the end of June, so that our 

 fears of centipedes and tarantulas were groundless. We 

 did not even get a mosquito bite. It was cooler in 

 Jamaica than in Philadelphia, and here we wei*e pleas- 

 antly disappointed again, for we expected to get yellow 

 fever at least, if we did not leave our sun-baked bodies 

 on the island. Extreme heat in Jamaica seems iw 

 sible with such health breezes from the mount? 1 '"! 

 when the projected railway is built around ic i-laud. 

 Jamaica will no doubt become a n Iqyg wuitci 

 resort. 



The mongoose has cleaned out snakes and rat:-, also the 

 quail, which used to form the chief source i'urspon , 

 Fruit and oonltry are now the mongoose's food. Hi: i<- 

 troduction" to kill rats has proved a remedy worse tl 

 the disease. 



We loaded with fruit at Ajaito Bay. 1 Om 

 Cabessa, Orange Bay and Buff Bay. besides yt. Ann's 

 Bay and Port Antonio. The flying netj of the Gulf 

 Stream did nob roost in the rigging oi the ship as is popu- 

 larly 'supposed. Every morning the sailors soused us 

 with sea water- itom the ship's hose, and what with sea 

 baths, swinging in hammocks and drinking soothing 

 drinks, singing and banjo playing on the ~ ship, the 

 scenery of the island, the cliuiate and the agreeabienesa 

 of the people— all this rendered our trip an enjovable 

 one. F. J. M. 



