or closing at will. These little creatures arc petfectly harmless, they 
cau be seen about sunset swimming and diving in the still lagoons of 
some water com-se. Their food consists of vegetable matter, insects, 
small mollnsca, and the ova of frogs and fishes, for the obtaining of 
which their peculiar mandible is admirably adapted. Until lately 
nothing -was known of the manner of bringing forth their young, but 
the researches of Mr. Caldwell, a young British scientist, who \d8ited 
Australia expressly to study the habits of the Monotreraata, discovered 
that this cuiious mammal is rendered still more curious by the fact 
that the female lays eggs, which are afterwards hatched, and the young 
nourished by the milk of the mother exuded from mammary glands, 
although no teats are observable. 
THE PLACENTAL MAMMALS. 
THE DINGO. 
Having completed the mention of all the different families 
of marsupials found in Queensland, I must give some notice 
of the non-marsupial or placental mammalia or this paper will not 
be complete. There are so few of them that the chapter will not ho 
a long one. The one deserving most notice is the Dingo or native 
dog {canis dingo). Owing to the discovery of fossil remains of dogs 
having been discovered in Australia it is now an accepted fact that 
this animal is indigenous and has not been introduced, as many have 
supposed. The dingo is essentially a dog, and the settler will recog¬ 
nise it the first time ho sees one. In colour it generally is of a 
yellowish-red, or reddish brown, but sometimes it is black, with tan 
underparts. Though varying in colour yet they are all of the ono 
species and all are alike in appearance, liaving a bushy fox-like tail 
and a wolf-liko head, and in size they are equal to that of a largo 
shepherd's-dog. They are very sti-ong, agile, and fleet, and possess ' 
also a large share of fox-like cunning; they also know and sometimes 
practice the wolf-liko habit of hunting in companies, though these 
companies seldom exceed six or eight in number. They are very 
destructive to the sheep and calves of the settlers, but strychnine has 
now exterminated them from districts wliere they were once 
numerous. The fact is the dingo and civilization cannot coalesce 
and the dog is doomed. In many parts of Queensland they are still 
very numei*Ous, and their mournful howl at night time and particularly 
during the winter months can frequently be heard even within a few 
miles of Brisbane. The dingo breeds freely withany of the domestic dogs. 
THE RODENTS. 
The family of rodents, or rats, are the only animals, other than the 
dingo, that belong to the placental mammals of Australia, excepting 
of course those aerial mammals, the bats, and the sea animals, the seals, 
dugongs, and porpoises. There are three genera and many species. In 
size they vary from that of a common mouse to that of a large rat. At 
times, some of the species increase to very great numbers in a most 
unaccountable way until tlicy become like a plague in tho districts of 
the intei-ior plains, and these myriad hosts will just as quickly dis- 
