Dingo

“ Up jumped Nqong from his bath in the salt-pan and shouted, 'Yes, I will!'
Nqong called Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo—always hungry, dusty in the sunshine, and showed him Kangaroo. Nqong said, 'Dingo! Wake up, Dingo! Do you see that gentleman dancing on an ashpit? He wants to be popular and very truly run after. Dingo, make him so!'
Up jumped Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo—and said, 'What, that cat-rabbit?'
Off ran Dingo—Yellow-Dog Dingo always—hungry, grinning like a coal-scuttle,—ran after Kangaroo.
Off went the proud Kangaroo on his four little legs like a bunny. ”

“ So the chase continues, and is now but little more than a mile from the scrub belt which fringes the base of the hills. To this ark of safety, therefore, the dingo strains every muscle, and seizes every small advantage which his instinct discerns. No less strenuous is the cattle dog. He has the staying powers of his class, and he too runs to win. In this way the pursued and pursuers hurry-skurry over bush and brake, over stony ridges and across intersecting gullies. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are told in some books that the dingo is the only Australian animal that is not a marsupial or an edentate, and yet they read in books of travel of the bear, the monkey, the badger, the wolf, the cat, the squirrel, the mole, and so forth. The fact is, that, with the natural looseness of diction common to colonists all over the world, the immigrants have transferred to their new country the nomenclature of the old. ”

“ But, Jem, or some of you men over there, be pleased to fire a shot or two to chase away those intolerable noisy dingoes, which, doubtless, like the ogre, smell fresh meat, and would like to make a foray on our game."
"Let us shoot a dingo, Edward," said Hugh; "I should like to look at the fellow closely."
"It is scarcely consistent with humanity," answered Deverell, "to destroy an animal that can be of no use to us; but we have an excuse in the wolfish character of the dingo, which destroys our sheep in numbers, if not closely watched ”

“ The ordinary pace of the dingo when on the chase may be described as a lope. This can be kept up the live-long day, and thus wear down the fleetest victim. To keep extended at full gallop in this unwonted fashion is not at all to the dingo's liking, and the sooner he can reach the distant scrub, which is his objective, the better pleased he will be. The cattle dog, though not ordinarily a hunter, is strong and tough, and possessed of a good pair of bellows. He started the game with the utmost alacrity, and now continues it with the greatest vim and determination. ”

“ Another instance was that of a settler, who, returning from a sporting expedition, with six kangaroo dogs, they met a dingo, which was attacked by the dogs, and worried to such a degree, that finding matters becoming serious, and that the worst of the sport came to his share, the cunning dingo pretended to be dead;—thinking he had departed the way of all dogs, they gave him a parting shake, and left him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the supposition that the dingo was introduced by man, we have now fairly decisive evidence that the native Australian, in place of being (as formerly supposed) a member of the negro stock, is a low type of Caucasian allied to the Veddahs of Ceylon and the Toalas of Celebes. Consequently the Australian natives must be presumed to have reached the island-continent by way of Malaya; and if this be admitted, nothing is more likely than that they should have been accompanied by pariah dogs of the Indian type. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Leaving science to unravel this problem, it may be said of the dingo that he is a good-looking but an ill-behaved animal. He is compared to the sheep-dog, to the wolf, and to the fox, and, in fact, he has a dash of each of these creatures in his appearance. He is about two feet high, is well-proportioned, with erect ears and a bushy tail. He stands firmly on his legs, and shows a good deal of strength in his well-constructed body. His colour varies from a yellowish-tawny to a reddish-brown, growing lighter towards the belly ”

“ A price is placed upon the head of the dingo by Government, and there is a class of men who are particularly fond of hunting it, and who obtain a living by waging a constant war upon the species. Undoubtedly this animal was introduced here by Captain Cook when he landed a second time in the country, and a century of wild life has given to it a new nature. The hunters of the dingo also make rabbits a special object of onslaught, for which Government pays a liberal premium of so much per brace, the heads being required as evidence of their destruction. ”

“ I am led to believe this because the Dingo type is always dominant, and because European dogs never would breed with wild Dingoes. They heartily detest them, may with advantage be employed in their chase, and only by force of circumstances breed with the half-tame individuals in the camps of the aborigines. In the north and north-west, European dogs had been in the country ten and thirty years respectively, and yet in the bush not a single specimen of Dingo was observed or shot which did not have all the specific characters of the species. ”

“ Forgotten in a moment is all fear, whether of the visible bird or the invisible pursuers. Handicapped as he is, and goaded by his pain and shameful condition, the dingo fires the first shot, as it were, by making a sudden jump at the emu's throat, narrowly missing it, and still more narrowly missing the leg stroke of the bird as it made its counter-stroke.
Both bird and beast are practised in all the arts and devices of animal warfare. Each knows the tactics of the other. But for the disability of the dog through the tenacious trap the chances would be in his favour ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ He is marvellously strong. He is not smart enough in the retreat after biting. His jaws are like the men-folk's steel traps, when they do get home. He misses the leg-hold every time, and that is surely foolish, for he could cripple them there in an instant. My teeth and claws! but what a neck he must have! It is reckless the way he leaves his great legs unguarded. Save me from traps and gins! Saw dingo ever such a mighty leap!"
In the first moments of that fight the two dingoes were half drunk from pride. It seemed certain to them that they would easily overcome the giant stranger. ”

“ In many ways the dingo is not unlike the dhole. It lives in packs, for instance, which scour the country in search of prey. These packs are always led by one of the strongest and most [80] experienced animals, which has won its position by fighting and overcoming all the rest; and when the leader begins to grow old and feeble, a younger and stronger animal takes his place by overcoming him in the same way. ”

“ In one district, a correspondent informs me, the dingoes have become so cunning as to refuse the poisoned baits set for them. It is certain that some sheep-dogs are so well acquainted with the fact that poisoned meats are laid for dogs that they will not eat meat they chance to see when travelling.
The Australian dingo is not wanting in courage. When fairly pinned in a corner, he will attack a man, and exhibit the fierceness of a watch-dog. A rather small dingo was exhibited some years ago at a great dog-show in Melbourne. ”

“ They constituted the “factory” of King Dingo Bingo—that is, his slave-mart; but his majesty did not reside there. His town and palace were farther up the river, where the country was higher and more healthy—for here, near the sea, the climate was rife with malaria, and all the diseases for which the west coast of Africa is so notorious. The king only visited this place at “intervals,” sometimes only once a year, when the Pandora or some other vessel came for her cargo of slaves—the chief product of King Dingo Bingo’s dominions. ”

“ The dingo, or as it is generally called, the native dog, occupies in the social scale, much the same position in the southern hemisphere, as the fox does in the northern; and also approaches more nearly to that animal in semblance and character than any other known. ”

“ For of all animals in Australia the dingo is the most intolerable nuisance on account of its fondness for mutton. Hunting the coyote on240 the plains of the United States is a pastime, but hunting the Australian dingo is a serious and monotonous business. Indeed, the sheep and the dingo cannot both remain in Australia unless the former has been eaten by the latter. In a single night a dingo will kill a score of sheep, and a pack of them will make way with several hundred. In one instance two of these pests killed and maimed more than four hundred sheep before retribution overtook them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”