ossing over to Rottnest was to avoid a north-west
breeze which came on the next day; on the 15th we again returned to Gage
Road.

ANECDOTES OF A WILD DOG.

Whilst we were at Swan River this time, a wish I had long entertained of
procuring a pup of the wild breed of dogs* of the country, was gratified.
It was a bitch, and left in the hollow of a tree by her mother who had
just escaped. Knowing that they hunt kangaroos in packs, and have
excellent noses, I was anxious to try if something useful might not be
made out of a cross with the fox-hound; and with this view on my arrival
in England, I gave her to my cousin, Mr. G. Lort Phillips; but she died
in a fit soon after coming into his possession. Whilst with me she had
two litters of pups by a pointer, three each time, the first at two
years, and the second after an interval of ten months. At these times she
was particularly savage, and would take the opportunity of paying off any
old grudge she might have against those who had ill-used her--for she
never forgot an injury--by stealing after them and snapping at their
heels. She was very much attached to her young; one day I took her on
shore and she kept catching birds to bring to them, supplying them, as an
over-fond mother will do, with a superfluity of good things.

(*Footnote. I am informed by Colonel Owen Phillips, 56th B.N.I., formerly
Assistant-Resident at Macassar, that he saw four wild dogs brought to Sir
Stamford Raffles at Java, which bore a very strong resemblance to the
animals mentioned in the text.)

I was very much interested in this animal, and took a great deal of pains
to tame her, though I never fully succeeded. Her nose, as I have said,
was excellent; and though quite mute she could hunt very well, as I found
by repeated trials when out rabbit shooting. She would never leave a
hole, working at it with her feet and teeth until she got at the inmate.
These qualities confirmed me in my opinion that a cross with the
fox-hound would produce a good result. As an illustration of her keenness
of smell, I may mention that one day when we were lying in the Tamar
river, she winded some sheep on the bank, and was instantly overboard and
after them, swimming so rapidly that she had reached the land, and,
though herself only the size of a large dog-fox, had pulled down a fine
ram before a party could get on shore to prevent her. When they landed,
instead of trying to make her escape, she slunk into the boat. Thi