NATURAL HISTORY OF QUEENSLAND 223 
to those commencing the study. The secretary is Mr. E. C. 
Horrell, 58, Copleston Road, Denmark Park, S.E., who will be 
glad to aford information as to its mode of working. 
NATURAL HISTORY OF QUEENSLAND.— I. 
BgfWj||HERE is no more characteristic denizen of the Queens- 
Iwrail l^nd bush than the dingo, the wild dog, who hunts the 
Bw.wQl settlers’ sheep, and whose melancholy howl o’ nights is 
one of the well-recognised sounds of the bush that the 
Queensland squatter hears as he reclines in his “rocker” upon 
the verandah after his day’s work “boundary-riding” or muster- 
ing cattle. The dingo can be easily tamed. The writer had a 
voyage many years ago from Australia ; on the steamer was a 
dingo, consigned to the London “ Zoo,” with which he struck 
up an acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship, and 
when he paid a visit to the Zoological Gardens a twelvemonth 
after arrival he found his old friend “ Jack,” the dingo, com- 
fortably installed amongst the bears, and quite ready to resume 
affectionate relations with him. 
Mr. Aflalo thus refers to the dingo in his “ Natural History 
of Australia ” : — 
“ They grow to about the size of a wolf, and vary consider- 
ably in the matter of colour. I have also seen them grey and 
almost black. Though for ever quarrelling with the English 
dog on the stations, they breed pretty freely together, the native 
dog, which has only a dismal howl of its own, soon acquiring 
a feeble ’oark from its more civilised companions. It has been 
somewhat freely ‘ dispersed ’ by the settler, until it is now 
getting scarce in many districts, where baits impregnated with 
strychnine have done their work well. The result of its dis- 
appearance from the cleared country has been a plague of kan- 
garoos, which have in turn to be thinned by organised ‘ drives.’ 
Every man’s hand is against this cowardly larrikin of the brute 
world, relentless despoiler of the sheepfold, through which it 
will run amuck, killing a number of animals by eating out the 
paunch, its favourite mouthful. Clever as the fox at feigning 
death, it is said that these animals have not moved a muscle 
until partially flayed ; and old bush hands have learnt to make 
quite sure, in cases where there is any doubt, by cutting the 
throat. Unlike other dogs it rarely hunts in packs.” 
Many scientists prefer to look upon the dingo as an Asiatic 
importation. Save that it is in some districts made a substitute 
for the fox to furnish sport, the creature has never been put to 
any use whatever by the settlers. Even the black fellows only 
succeed in raising it to a half-domesticated state, and it is liable 
at any moment to run wild again. Whether owing to ill- 
