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"If only the problems of the adults were as easily handled as that," laughed the King. "Mr. Your Majesty?" came another voice. "I want to ask you some advice." The Cowardly Lion looked and saw another wombat. "Aha," he said. "Let me guess. Your name is Henry, right?" "Gee," replied the smaller animal. "You know my name! You must know everything!" "I do," said the Lion jokingly.
We saw no kangaroos lower down than Dunlop's range, neither did we see any emus. In the red sandhills were many burrows of the wombat, but these also became scarce as we proceeded downwards. A species of rat* was remarkable for the ingenious fabric it raised to secure itself from the native dog or birds of prey.
The timber of the country is of gigantic size, and with other varieties may be found cedar, rosewood, tulip and mahogany. But the most wonderful products of Australia belong to the animal kingdom, among them the kangaroo, the wombat, and that strange anomaly of the animal creation, the Ornithorynchus, or "duck-billed quadruped."
The wombat is a great nuisance in districts where there are irrigation canals; its burrows weaken the banks of the water-channels, and cause collapses. The dugong is a sea mammal found on the north coast of Australia. It is said to be responsible for the idea of the mermaid. Rising out of the water, the dugong's figure has some resemblance to that of a woman.
Also, that the dingo was not a dingo at all, but just a wild dog; and that the only difference between a dingo and a dodo was that neither of them barked; otherwise they were just the same. He said that the only game-bird in Australia was the wombat, and the only song-bird the larrikin, and that both were protected by government. The most beautiful of the native birds was the bird of Paradise.
Bartlett has seen many black varieties of the jaguar, leopard, vulpine phalanger, and wombat; and he is certain that all, or nearly all these animals, were males. On the other hand, with wolves, foxes, and apparently American squirrels, both sexes are occasionally born black.
With varying emotions we call attention to the wombat of Australia, 3,841; grebe, 51,261, and house cat, 92,407. Very nearly all the totals of Lampson & Co. for each species are much lower for the sales of 1912 than for those of 1911. Is this fact significant of a steady decline?
There were five bullock-teams altogether: Thompson's twenty; Cooper's eighteen; Dixon's eighteen; and Price's two teams of fourteen each. Three of the wagons, in accordance with a fashion of the day, bore names painted along the board inside the guard irons. Thompson's was the Wanderer; Cooper's, the Hawkesbury; and Dixon's, the Wombat.
"If Henry is going to do everything you do, you certainly don't want to do anything too foolish." "Oh, yeah," agreed Ricardo. "That's true. Thanks for your advice, Mr. Lion King, Sir." "Any time, Ricardo," laughed the Lion. "Be sure to give my respects to your mother." "I will," said the wombat, scampering off happily and chanting something under his breath about being a role model.
The crest was sharp and immediately over it a sharp drop went down to a gully at the bottom. It was steep, rough-going, boulder-strewn and undermined with wombat holes. Perhaps in his calmer moments Bobs might have hesitated, but just now he knew nothing but a frantic desire to escape from that cruel agony in his sides.
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