54 
ALMOST HUMAN 
supervise the mixing of their food with the greatest interest, and are 
as bad as cats or dogs for sticking their noses into the dish too soon. 
The common idea that they shoot their quills at strangers in order 
to protect themselves is pure nonsense. The fact is that with such 
spiky covering there is always a gradual loosening of them, and always 
“I can show you many points.” 
one or two are ready to drop out on the least provocation; but their 
only mode of defence is to be quick enough to roll up and leave no soft 
spots anywhere. 
THE WOMBAT. 
Another strange and interesting animal that is “all our own” is the 
wombat, that tireless little borrower that is the despair of so many 
settlers, though others have found an excellent use for him. One settler 
in the mountainous country of Victoria said that if it were not for the 
wombat he and his family would never taste pork. They eat the flesh 
of the wombats exactly as we do that of swine; they salt it and cure 
it ; and eat it fresh as well ; and he, as well as many another settler, bears 
testimony to its quality and flavor. 
In the ranges and sparsely-populated districts the pioneers have until 
now been beaten by the wombat as far as erecting fences is concerned. 
