An Australian Enigma, The Contested Nature of the Dingo

“ These characters are very constant, and I have never seen two Dingoes differing more in form and colour than perhaps two foxes, a circumstance which to my mind indicates that the Dingo is not a breed of domestic dog gone wild—a very common belief—but undoubtedly a distinct canine species peculiar to Australia, a fact which is moreover amply proved by the occurrence of fossil Dingoes in the pleistocene formations of Australia.
The Dingo, as a rule, is shy and very cunning, and a European is seldom able to kill the animal in its lair. ”

“ This is most apparent among the mammals, which give to the Australian fauna its most marked feature. Imagine a continent about the size of Europe with no other mammals than marsupials, a few bats, rats, and mice. There are no apes, no beasts of prey, no hoofed animals. None of those groups are found from which our domestic animals have been developed. The only exception is the dingo, the Australian dog, but although fossil specimens have been found, it is generally supposed that the dingo was introduced by man ”

“ Very different, on the other hand, is the condition of things in Australia and Papua, where marsupials (and monotremes) are the dominant forms of mammalian life, the placentals being represented (apart from bats, which are mainly of an Asiatic type) only by a number of more or less aberrant rodents belonging to the mouse-tribe, and in Australia by the dingo, or native dog, and in New Guinea by a wild pig. The dingo was, however, almost certainly brought from Asia by the ancestors of the modern natives ”

“ There seems to be no doubt that fossilized remains of the dingo occur intermingled with those of the extinct Australian mammals, such as giant kangaroos, giant wombats and the still more gigantic Diprotodon. And since remains of man have apparently not yet been detected in these deposits, it has been thought by some naturalists that the dingo must be an indigenous species. ”

“ There comes just recently from Australia a new light on the question, in the fact that amongst remains of the animals, extinct and non-extinct, of the Australian drifts, those of the dingo or native dog have been at length detected. This discovery might be supposed to have settled the question of man's intervention, were it not that a like antiquity to that just indicated for the dog, claimed now so generally for man himself, may afford grounds for regarding the interesting problem as still unsolved. ”

“ In the first place, with a single exception, the mammalia are all marsupials, or edentates. The solitary exception is the dingo, or native dog, an animal which somewhat resembles the jackal, but is altogether a handsomer animal. Whether it be indigenous, or a mere variety of the dog modified by long residence in the country, is rather doubtful, though the best zoölogists incline to the latter opinion, and say that the marsupial type alone is indigenous to this strange country. ”

“ Both 'tiger' and 'devil' are nocturnal, and both have been so hunted and trapped by the settlers, whose sheep and poultry they killed, as now to be very scarce. Neither has ever been known to attack man. At one time, as geological examination shows, the marsupial 'devil' and his relative were both found in Australia, and the wonder is that they should have so completely disappeared from the scene as they have done.
Bass River Opossum.
[Pg 183] An animal that stands entirely apart from the marsupials in Australia is the wild dog. The dingo is one of the mysteries. ”

“ Whether the Canis Dingo be really indigenous, or has at some very remote period followed man in his migrations, is a question on which naturalists are at variance. For my own part, I am inclined to the latter theory, as being the most philosophic mode of accounting for its presence there. That Man is the latest visitant to the soil of Australia there can be little doubt: the country is far too sparsely provided with fruits and other substances necessary for his existence to favour a contrary hypothesis. ”

“ The great island-continent of Australia, together with the South-eastern Austro-Malayan islands, is especially characterized by being the home of the great majority of that group of lowly mammals commonly designated marsupials, or pouched-mammals. Indeed, with the exception of the still more remarkable monotremes [q.v.] , or egg-laying mammals, nearly the whole of the mammalian fauna of Australia consists of these marsupials, the only other indigenous mammals being certain rodents and bats, together with the native dog, or dingo, which may or may not have been introduced by man. ”

“ The order Carnivora is represented in Australia by the Native Dog or Dingo (Canis dingo) . It is by no means a settled question whether the Dingo can boast of very great antiquity. The evidence of its remains having been found under volcanic tuff beds in Victoria is not very convincing, for the original record does not indicate the precise position where the bones were found. The fact of the remains of the Dingo having been found in Cave deposits often associated with extinct marsupials, goes a good way to prove its antiquity. ”

“ Australian cattle-dogs have a world reputation, and the very best are they which by crossing inherit a strain of dingo nature. That which makes the dingo so hated by stock owners—who pursue him relentlessly—is the killing lust which possesses him. Were he to simply kill for food, and be satisfied with a victim that would furnish enough for present needs, settlers would be far more tolerant of him. The plain truth about him is that his predatory instinct is so strong as to practically intoxicate him. ”

“ Dingo, the native wild dog of Australia (Canis Dingo) , of a wolf-like appearance and extremely fierce. The ears are short and erect, the head elongated, the tail rather bushy, and the hair of a reddish-dun colour. In habit the dingo is rather fox-like, usually lying concealed throughout the day and making predatory expeditions at night. It is very destructive to sheep, killing more than it eats. It was probably introduced by prehistoric man.
Ding ́wall, a royal and parliamentary burgh and seaport of Scotland, county town of Ross and Cromarty, situated at the head of Cromarty Firth. ”

“ We were told about the wild dog, already spoken of, familiarly known as the "dingo," which is such a serious pest to the sheep-raisers, and which closely resembles the Scotch collie. This creature is the wildest and fiercest animal found in the Australian bush, evincing a destructive propensity merely for the sake of spilling blood. Its habit is to kill a dozen sheep when it attacks a flock, though one would more than suffice to [Pg 220] satisfy its hunger. It seizes the unresisting victim by the throat, and its fatal work is quickly accomplished. ”

“ That evening, in conference with his chief stockman, Mr. M'Intyre laid his plans for the extermination of the pack of dingoes which had just given an exhibition of their destructive powers. In this particular instance the brutes had driven a number of yearling calves, weaners, into a blind gully. Having boxed them up in this cul de sac, the rapacious dogs found them an easy prey.
The Australian wild dog is a combination of several very excellent qualities—from the canine standpoint, that is. He possesses more sagacity than any other wild thing of the bush. ”

“ To secure four dingoes in one scoop was a great stroke of luck. Not so much luck, on reflection, as skilful management. An amateur might have set a hundred traps with seeming skill and not have bagged a dog. No one save a trapper like George could trap with any degree of certainty.
"I s'pose you'll bag the balance to-night," remarked Tom to the trapper when they had remounted.
"No jolly fear! Never catch any more along this line."
"How's that?"
"Why, d'yer think a dingo's no sense? Be gosh! all the calves in creation wuddent tempt what's left of the vermin to come along this track again. ”

“ Only thirty yards now lie between the dingo and his salvation—the good thick scrub that will swallow him up; but—the breath of the pursuer blows hot upon him. Throwing his head over his shoulder for the fraction of a second, the desperate beast sees that only by a miracle can he escape. The adversary is upon his quarters, and in another second the brute's fangs will be buried in his back. It is a supreme moment. Now or never! Making a super-canine effort, the fear-stricken thing draws away from its enemy in the last dozen strides. ”

“ The object of this aerial tomb is evident enough, namely, to protect the corpse from the dingo, or native dog. That the ravens and other carrion-eating birds should make a banquet upon the body of the dead man does not seem to trouble the survivors in the least, and it often happens that the traveller is told by the croak of the disturbed ravens that the body of a dead Australian is lying in the branches over his head. ”

“ Though the dingo is treated so well it often runs away, especially in the pairing season, and at such times it never returns. Thus it never becomes perfectly domesticated, still is very useful to the natives, for it has a keen scent and traces every kind of game; it never barks, and hunts less wildly than our dogs, but very rapidly, frequently capturing the game on the run. ”

“ On Herbert river there are rarely more than one or two dingoes in each tribe, and as a rule they are of pure blood. The natives find them as puppies in the hollow trunks of trees, and rear them with greater care than they bestow on their own children. The dingo is an important member of the family; it sleeps in 179the huts and gets plenty to eat, not only of meat, but also of fruit. Its master never strikes, but merely threatens it. He caresses it like a child, eats the fleas off it, and then kisses it on the snout. ”

“ In former times, when the only human inhabitants of Australia were the savage blacks, the kangaroo was kept from increasing too rapidly, through the combined efforts of the dingoes and the natives. The dingo is the Australian wild dog, and closely allied to the wolf and jackal, of which he is certainly the first-cousin. ”

“ As for the dingo, or Australian wild dog, only half domesticated by the savage natives, he represents a low ancestral dog type, half wolf and half jackal, incapable of the higher canine traits, and with a suspicious, ferocious, glaring eye that betrays at once his uncivilisable tendencies. ”

“ The food of the Dingo in the vast forests and deserts of the north consists, as a rule, of smaller vertebrates, chiefly various species of lizards, Coniluridæ and Muridæ, a fact which is strongly indicated by the almost constant presence of their bones in the excrements of the animal. I do not deny that a young Macropod or Emu occasionally forms its diet, perhaps with an additional egg or young bird; but the Dingo chiefly depends on smaller animals for its existence. Its habits are sneaking and cowardly, and I hardly consider it capable of attacking a kangaroo its own size. ”

“ Though it is not true, as alleged, that it resumes completely the structure it had before domestication, yet it approximates to that structure. The Dingo, or wild dog of Australia, is one of the instances given of this; and the wild horse of South America is another. Mankind, too, supplies us with instances. In the Australian bush and in the backwoods of America, the Anglo-Saxon race, in which civilization has developed the higher feelings to a considerable degree, rapidly lapses into comparative barbarism: adopting the moral code, and sometimes the habits, of savages. ”

“ Lastly, savages set the highest value, as we shall see in the chapter on Selection, on dogs: even half-tamed animals are highly useful to them: the Indians of North America cross their half-wild dogs with wolves, and thus render them even wilder than before, but bolder: the savages of Guiana catch and partially tame and use the whelps of two wild species of Canis, as do the savages of Australia those of the wild Dingo. Mr. Philip King informs me that he once trained a wild Dingo puppy to drive cattle, and found it very useful. ”

“ We have already seen, however, that there are several creatures which look very gentle, but are in reality most savage and ferocious, and though the dingo is not quite so fierce as the fossa or the wildcat, its appearance is not at all in keeping with its character, for it is very bad-tempered and hard to tame, and is always liable to fits of rage. ”

“ Oldfield, who has seen so much of the aborigines of Australia, informs me that "they are all very glad to get a European kangaroo dog, and several instances have been known of the father killing his own infant that the mother might suckle the much-prized puppy." Different kinds of dogs would be useful to the Australian for hunting opossums and kangaroos, and to the Fuegian for catching fish and otters; and the occasional preservation in the two countries of the most useful animals would ultimately lead to the formation of two widely distinct breeds. ”

“ I emphasise this term, for domestication presupposes a radical change, by means of selection, in the habits of the animal, which becomes capable of reproducing its species in captivity; this is not the case with animals simply tamed.
One of the first animals tamed, then domesticated, by man was probably the dog. The most uncultured tribes—Fuegians and Australians—possess domesticated dogs, trained for hunting. Europeans of neolithic times bred several species of them: the Canis familiaris palustris, of small size ”

“ Grey, glistening bark canoes were lazily rubbing their sides together on a large lagoon hard by. “Tamed” dingoes slouched at their masters’ heels, or snuffed about the gunyahs, gaunt as starved wolves. One woman was suckling alternately her own piccaninny and a puppy dingo! Two or three of the gins were guarding some opossums that were being cooked under a round layer of stones, on the top of which the kitchen fire was kindled. (Sometimes, instead of using this oven arrangement, the blacks bury their game, unskinned, in the hot ashes) . ”

“ Familiarity alone prevents our seeing how universally and largely the minds of our domestic animals have been modified by domestication. It is scarcely possible to doubt that the love of man has become instinctive in the dog. All wolves, foxes, jackals, and species of the cat genus, when kept tame, are most eager to attack poultry, sheep, and pigs; and this tendency has been found incurable in dogs which have been brought home as puppies from countries, such as Tierra del Fuego and Australia, where the savages do not keep these domestic animals. ”