SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
‘The Dingo Question. 
By A. S. LE SOUEF, Taronga Park, Sydney. 
Just when the dingo arrived in Australia is only of academic 
interest; the fact that he is here, and a serious menace to our pastoral 
industry, is of immediate vital concern. 
The dingo is a true dog, specialized into an even type, an average 
male being 42 inches from head to tip of tail, and standing 21 inches 
at the shoulder, having rather long, coarse, tawny hair, with a white- 
tipped, short, brush tail, and short, prick ears. A white race is found 
in Southern Australia, between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie, and 
black specimens have been noted in the north-west. The dingo cannot 
bark. 
Pure animals are now rare, as they have been crossed with the 
domestie dog, and nearly all that are now killed show admixture, chiefly 
in having white paws, white mark on chest, shorter coat, sometimes 
drooping ears, and often larger size. 
While generally spread all over the country they are confined 
chiefly to the wilder hilly parts and forest areas, which offer 
them greater security than the plains, but in the absence of timber they 
will lie up in scrub and gullies, but this is only the day refuge, for they 
come out at night into the more open lands in search of food, but they 
seldom go far into the plains. 
Broadly speaking, the wild dog is now numerous in the north and 
north-west, and also in the mountain country of the south-east of New 
South Wales; in the south and west of Queensland; over a large part 
of the Northern Territory; and over a considerable part of Western 
Australia, especially in the north-west and south-west. They breed up 
in the uninhabited interior, and a continual influx occurs into the 
settled parts. An attempt was made to fence them off from New South 
Wales in the north-west, but during the war the fence fell into disre- 
pair, and the prevailing drought drove numbers of dogs eastwards. 
Ilaving only small animals to deal with they hunt singly or in pairs, 
and sometimes in small packs, but this is generally a female with her 
grown pups. 
The young are born in late winter, about August, but the time varies 
in different parts of the country, being later in the south than in the 
north; the female generally selects a cave or isolated hollow log in : 
which to rear her family. 
In the uninhabited country their food consists of marsupials, birds, 
reptiles, &c., and they form a natural check on the undue increase of 
the kangaroo and wallaby, and, to a lesser extent, of the rat kangaroo 
and the bandicoot, and for this reason the dingo is sometimes tolerated 
or even encouraged in cattle country, but this is uneconomic, for with a 
little knowledge of their habits the offending marsupials can be killed 
and the value of their skins will well repay for the work. The position 
is also unsound in that when other food fails the dogs attack calves 
und foals, or migrate to the surrov ng sheep country. 
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