li4 AUSTRALIAN ZOOLOGY. 
wildly than our dogs, but very rapidly, and frequently capture 
the game on the run. Sometimes the dingo refuses to go any further, 
and his owner has then to carry him on his shoulder, a luxury of 
which the former is very fond. Having a keen scent, he is very 
useful to the wild blackfellow. He traces every kind of game, even 
the cassowary, and is able to capture the half-grown, and sometimes 
the old birds. Gentlemen of Australia hunt the dingo, just as the 
fox is hunted in England, for which he forms no mean substitute. 
Food. —The dingo lives upon wallabies, bandicoots, opossums, 
wombats, and kangaroos, but since the flocks of the white man have 
occupied his native haunts he has manifested a preference for sheep 
and lambs. Mr. Gilbert states that the dingo will follow a flock of 
sheep, and when a lamb drops behind he immediately pounces upon it 
and carries it off. Itis not altogether for the purpose of food that the 
dingoattacks sheep, but in mere wantonnesshesnapsatthem right and 
left ; from a single bite, which is not fatal at the moment, the sheep 
seldom recovers, but lingers and dies in a few days. Hence the 
dingo is the declared enemy of the squatters, who do all they can to 
compass his destruction. On large stations a man is kept whose 
work is to lay out poison for the dingo. He takes a leg of mutton 
from a fresh-killed sheep and having fastened a rope to the shank, it 
is trailed on the ground where tracks indicate the presence of these 
pests. He then suspends the mutton from the branch of a tree, so 
as to hang about a foot from the ground. Incisions are made in the 
flesh, in which strychnine is placed, the poison soaks through the 
flesh. If dingoes are numerous there will be nothing left in a day 
or two but the rope and bone, and their distorted forms lying here 
and there. 
Where found. ~The dingo is extremely abundant, with little 
variation, over the whole of Australia. In some of the squatting 
districts he is still very destructive. In 1891 the Sydney Morning 
Herald reported that: ‘‘In the district of the upper Murray dingoes 
are very numerous at the present time. One settler lost as many as 
300 sheep in a few months by their ravages.” In April, 1892, it 
was announced: ‘‘ Dingoes have inflicted a deal of damage recently 
amongst some of the flocks at Cooyal, Mudgee district.” Mr. Le 
Souef, of Victoria, observes:—‘'The dingo of northern Australia 
can be distinguished from his brother of the south by his somewhat 
smaller size and courageous bearing. He always carries his tail 
curled over his back, and is ever ready to attack anyone or any- 
thing ; whilst the southern dingo carries his tail low, slinks along 
like a fox, and is easily frightened.” The dingo is not found in 
Tasmania. Professor Tate, writing of the Bunda Plateau, to the 
north of the Great Australian Bight, says: “The dingo is widely 
spread, and was seen farther inland than any other animal. The 
crevices of the Bunda cliffs are his favourite resort, and a well beaten 
track extends along the edge of the cliff from end to end. 
Is the dingo indigenous ?—Most writers have answered this 
question in the negative, Mr. Gould being one. ‘This is his opinion: 
‘Without going into the probable origin of this particular race of 
