September, 1918 
FOREST A N D STREAM 
519 
prognostications o f 
the creature’s value. 
H 
The longdog of Afghanistan 
dog’s guts out with the dexterity of a 
butcher in Packing Town! Recognizing 
that the deerhound was fond of the throat 
of any animal, and that in kangaroo work, 
the dog had to be kept away from that dan¬ 
gerous quarter—the game being stunned 
and knocked down by the swing of a stir- 
I rup iron or shot in the head, the hunter 
■ using a revolver or whatever is handy— 
Mr. Davies set about breeding a dog for 
dingo killing, since the dingo or native 
dog of Australia is one of the great¬ 
est pests that squatters have to 
contend with in some Darts. 
UNTING the 
kangaroo 
is probably the 
oldest outdoor sport 
in Australia. It is 
very exciting and be¬ 
cause of the thickness 
of the brush, the 
blindness of the 
growth, and the plen¬ 
itude of fallen and 
often completely hid¬ 
den timber of all siz¬ 
es, a most exciting 
undertaking and one 
attended with consid¬ 
erable risk. There 
are no better—few as 
good—horsemen i n 
the world as are the 
Anzacs, particularly 
those of Australia 
who lived in saddle 
and where even the 
'letter-box collectors, 
ride and lamplighters 
are mounted. The 
saddles have large 
knee protectors in 
front and the seat is 
longer and flatter 
than the usual Eng¬ 
lish one. Both men 
and women are fear¬ 
less on a horse. It is 
here worthy of note 
that the first settle¬ 
ment for the freemen who arrived in Syd¬ 
ney in February, 1793, and to which 
gave the appellation of Liberty Plains, and 
to the Westward of the town, was former¬ 
ly known as Kangaroo ground. The “kan¬ 
garoo” is evidently English, the earliest 
recorded native name of the large grey 
kangaroo being Patagorang; that of the 
small grey, Baggaray; the small black, 
Wallibah. The natives had dogs and 
hunted with wooden spears as they still do. 
When the kangaroo- is jumped there is a 
Now the domesticated or coursing 
dog must go to the throat of the 
dingo, just as our friends on the 
prairie roll over their wolf. So 
1 Davies crossed the Russian wolf¬ 
hound on to some of his first-class 
Scottish deerhounds, produced a 
I new longdog for Australia and 
called them “Strathdoon hounds.” 
Strathdoon was Davies’ kennel 
prefix, and thus the “new” variety 
,at the Antipodes was named. They 
Iproved to be excellent dingo killers 
and were much admired early in 
this cycle when they were walked 
about the Royal Agricultural So- 
!:iety’s grounds at Sydney, N. S. W., 
on the occasion of the annual sheep- 
oreeders’ show where attend squat¬ 
ters—owners of enormous stations 
and individually often possessors 
of tens of thousands of sheep. They 
laid they thought Davies’ new kind 
jof longdogs would be just the 
hing they wanted, and it is be- 
eved they were right in their 
general cry of “Roo!” and the dogs are 
off after the fleeing marsupial. It is sur¬ 
prising at what a pace the kangaroo can 
go. Their leaps are simply wonderful and 
especially is this the case when they are 
springing. When on level ground they ap¬ 
pear to glide rather than jump. One crossed 
me once and in front of the dogs. They 
were close behind him and he knew it! 
He chose a cattle path in some stunted 
brush that had been cleared and allowed 
to grow wild again. He was travelling for 
all he was worth, and from my elevated 
position in the saddle, I had an excellent 
view of his movement which reminded, one 
of the easy and methodical swell of the sea 
waves reaching a flat, firm sandy strand 
on a perfectly calm day. 
Whether or not the kangaroo puts his 
short fore-feet to the ground when he is 
pursued, hunters are divided in opinion. 
That he will more or less hug a dog the 
while he disembowels him is pretty well 
admitted. We, of course, have all watched 
the antics of a boxing kangaroo; that is 
about his action—only more so since he is 
fighting for his life and in the wild state— 
when he confronts the dogs. There is little 
danger in the case of the smaller marsu¬ 
pials and in the case of the brushtail, I 
have seen him bound, well hunted, thor¬ 
oughly bested and killed by a pack of bea¬ 
gles about 14 in. at the shoulder. This 
was in Western Australia, the pack be¬ 
longing to the Fremantle Hunt Club and 
hunted by Mr. Cairns Candy, only brother 
of the Duchess of Newcastle. For the 
large kangaroo longdogs are in general 
use in the country under notice where there 
is much hare coursing with straight bred 
greyhounds, as is the case in New Zealand, 
three days’ voyage from New South Wales. 
T HE longdogs of South Africa are 
greyhounds and game ones at that! 
I do not think a longtail could be 
asked a more difficult question than to be 
slipped to a bok on the stormy Veld, after 
the coarse grass has been burnt off and the 
stumps are left and as stiff as porcupine 
quills. We coursed the stembok and the 
• (continued on page 567) 
Old Bill, one of the greatest of western wolfdogs 
