A WOLFISH GROUP.
| 1. Coyote. 2. Red Fox. 3. Hyena Dog, or Hunting Dog. |
| 4. Tasmanian Pouched Wolf. 5. Tasmanian Devil. 6. Gray Wolf. |
When the first white colonists settled down in Tasmania, they found these packs of dingoes terribly troublesome, for they would visit the folds night after night and carry off the sheep and lambs in numbers. Watchers were employed to shoot them, traps were set for them, huge bonfires were lighted to keep them away; but all to no purpose. One colony lost twelve hundred sheep from their ravages in less than three months; another lost seven hundred. At last the settlers banded themselves together in a war against the dingoes, and by hanging pieces of poisoned meat to the branches of trees, about a foot from the ground, they succeeded in greatly reducing their numbers, so that now they are comparatively scarce.
A dingo which was kept at the London Zoo many years ago used to sit outside his kennel and bay at the moon so loudly that his dismal howling could be heard all over the Regent's Park.
The Crab-eating Dog
Two or three kinds of wild dog are also found in South America; but of these we can only mention the crab-eating dog which is chiefly found in the forests of Guiana, Demerara, and Brazil.
This animal owes its name to its great fondness for crabs. Even domestic dogs will often eat these creatures. "I once had a black-and-tan terrier, called 'Jock,'" says a writer, "whose greatest delight was to be taken for a walk along the sea-shore, so that he might hunt for crabs. Whenever he found one he would fling it up into the air half a dozen times or so, until it was perfectly dazed. Then holding it down with one paw, he would twist off the great claws so that it could not nip him; and finally he would crunch up its body and lick out pieces of flesh from the shell. Now and then, however, he would get a pinch and I would see him dancing about on his hind legs with a crab hanging to his lip, howling pitifully for me to come and set him free."
Whether the crab-eating dog gets nipped in the same way, sometimes, we cannot tell you. Most likely he does; at any rate he spends a great deal of his time in hunting for crabs on the shore. But he also feeds on small animals and birds, and it is said that sometimes he hunts in packs, like the dingo and the dhole, which even run down and kill the swift-footed deer.
Wolves