REMINISCENCES FROM THE MELBOURNE ZOO. 
165 
Desperate now, the boy gave a violent shake and managed to fling the 
dingo on to the floor. Then the antagonists faced each other, and the 
boy hoped he might be able to soothe his erstwhile companion and pet, 
but the thing had tasted the delights of battle and was ready for a fight 
to the death. Quick as thought he sprang for his old master’s throat, 
instinctively making for the jugular vein where he knew death could be 
inflicted most rapidly. Seeing the unavoidable attack coming, the boy 
put up his right arm to shield himself— his left hung numb and power- 
less — and the dog’s ferocious onslaught was stopped when he made his 
fangs meet in that elbow. The boy retained sufficient presence of mind 
to know that he must either use his arm as a gag as he steadily pressed 
the brute back, or risk the fearful damage he seemed determined to inflict. 
He now slowly got on to his knees, and thus got a firmer leverage against 
the maddened dog. A slow, horrible tussle began between the two. 
After the first few cruel bites, the arm grew mercifully numb, but the 
boy soon realised what a plight he was in with two nerveless hands. 
Should his strength give way completely before he was discovered, or his 
nerves fail to the point of faintness, it was good-bye to dear, sweet life. 
Calling at intervals as loudly as his fast ebbing strength would permit, 
he bore the burden of his situation as bravely as he could until his strain- 
ing ears heard the first faint sounds of approaching footsteps. Mr. 
Meaker, senior, was returning from his morning rounds when he was 
attracted by a cry, and the second he realised what was going forward, 
he rushed to the rescue, armed with a formidable rake. He thrust this 
weapon into the animal’s face and then pinned him down with it while 
the victim crawled out of the cage. The poor boy’s wounds were bathed 
and bandaged, but there was some natural fear for consequences, for the 
brute seemed to have gone completely mad. Next morning Mr. Meaker 
put on a heavy pair of skin gloves and went into his cage to examine him, 
but the beast savagely made his teeth meet even through the hide of the 
gloves. The following day he was foaming at the mouth and showing 
every symptom of madness, so a special bit of meat was prepared for 
him with a seasoning of strychnine, and thus it came about that, like 
Goldsmith’s story of a parallel incident, 
“The man recovered of the bite, 
The dog it was that died.” 
Very shortly afterwards one of the finest dingo skins to be seen any- 
where was set up, stuffed, in the Melbourne Museum, and to this day 
the other participant in that memorable struggle carries the marks of 
dingo teeth in every limb. 
