. Animal Life and the World of Nature; A magazine of Natural History. ccasionally prove the sharpness of its teeth. Broad, somewhat flat, and solid to adegree, the animals head is admirably adapted for such warfare. Correctly speaking,the wombat is of nocturnal habit, and may be heard perambulating the gloom-enwrappedforest depths, giving voice at intervals to a deep guttural growl; nevertheless, I haveoften disturbed them in broad daylight basking in the sunshine, comfortably ensconcedl?etween the wide-spreading roots of some gigantic mesmate, or stretched out besidetheir respective burrows,
. Animal Life and the World of Nature; A magazine of Natural History. ccasionally prove the sharpness of its teeth. Broad, somewhat flat, and solid to adegree, the animals head is admirably adapted for such warfare. Correctly speaking,the wombat is of nocturnal habit, and may be heard perambulating the gloom-enwrappedforest depths, giving voice at intervals to a deep guttural growl; nevertheless, I haveoften disturbed them in broad daylight basking in the sunshine, comfortably ensconcedl?etween the wide-spreading roots of some gigantic mesmate, or stretched out besidetheir respective burrows, as seen in the illustration. The animal, being of course amarsupial, carries its young in a pouch, after the manner of the tiger-cat, opossum, andflying squirrel,and most vali-antly does itguard the littlecreature againstthe attacks ofdomestic dogs,its kick, de-livered with ashort hind-leg,being verypowerful; infact, a singleblow has beenknown to breaka dogs leg. Ifalarmed whilesome distancefrom its burrow,the animalmakes littleattempt to in-vestigate thecause, but. ENTEANCB TO A WOMBAT BUEROW. 3o6 Animal Life hurries along, half running, half cantering, halting not till within a few feet ofits cavernous home, where it stands and listens—not looks—for the fancied or realdanger, those short ears never failing to catch the slightest sound, and invariablysuggesting the bowels of the earth as the only safe retreat. The picture awakens within me reminiscences of a somewhat ludicrous nature,and at the same time serves to acquaint the reader with the relative size of anaverage wombat. While camped way up the Big River, behind Mount Torbrek,we ran short of tucker, the bushmans name for food, and having twelve miles totravel across ranges, as rough as they are steep, in order to procure a fresh supply,we decided to replenish our larder—a loose canvas bag strung up in the deep shadeof a silver wattle—with the hind-quarters of a wombat, and so postpone our monthlyvisit to the stor
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