16 
THE GERLONG NATURALIST. 
IS THERE A BUNYIP ? 
By Me. D Arct. 
In 1872, as near as I can remember, a Mr. Haigh, Mr. Dennant, 
•and I went down about Christmas time from Ballarat to have some 
shooting on Corangamite. We got down to a farm-house, about 
'half a mile from the lake, about 8 o'clock. After we had tea, I 
proposed that we should walk down to the lake and see if there were 
any ducks, Cape Barren geese, or anything else worth shooting. 
Mr. Dennant would not go; but Mr. Haigh agreed. It was full 
moon, and as bright almost as day, and no one, who has not been 
down on those plains in the Western District, can conceive their 
loveliness on a moonlight night. The air seems loaded with health. 
Everything is so calm, that I verily believe you could hear people 
speaking in their ordinary tones a mile off. Well we started, and as 
we got within 100 yards of the lake, Mr. Haigh said, " What is that 
on the edge of the lake ? " I said, " I did not know, but I thought 
it was a sheep or a large dog." " How can that be ? " said he, 
" there are no sheep about here, and no houses for a dog to come 
from, and what would a dog be doing down there, at this time of the 
night ? " However, as we got closer to the animal, it began to go 
into the water, a fact we both wondered at, particularly if it were 
a sheep or dog. When we got about 60 yds., it had gone in deeper, 
so I said, " Be it a sheep or a dog, I am going to fire at it." " All 
right, we will both fire together," said he. We did so, when with 
a plunge it disappeared. Some little time afterwards, I had shot 
a lot of ducks, at the mouth of the Woordie Tallock Creek, where 
it empties into the lake, and as they were carried into the lake for 
some distance, and as I had no dog, I was going to swim out for 
'them, when a man came down with a little punt in a sprin<T cart. 
I told him if he would go for them, he could have half. He did so ; 
but while I was looking at him, I heard him scream out, and 
presently he capsized the punt and swam for his life into shore. 
When he got in, he could hardly stand, and told me that just as he 
was taking up the last duck, an animal like a big retriever dog, but 
with a round head and hardly any ears, had come up close to the 
'boat, and that he had got such a fright, that he had capsized it. I 
must tell you, gentlemen, that previous to this, when I was living on 
the Big River (a tributary of the Goulburn) near Gippsland, I had 
to go to Enoch's Point for my letters, a distance of six miles. One 
evening, about seven o'clock, I started to go up, walking of course, 
(I was expecting some important letters from home.) I took two 
kangaroo dogs with me, one of them being a Scotch staghound, 
given to me by T. D. S. Heron, Esq., at that time Warden of the 
gold fields, on Eryer's Creek, and afterwards, I believe, Police 
Magistrate, in G-eelong. This staghound was the gamest and 
pluckiest dog I ever saw, and saved my life once in a fight with a 
