The Tasmanian Devil.

Manawatu Herald, 4 May 1899, Page 2

The Tasmanian Devil.

We mentioned that some time* In 1897 the custom returns showed that the government had imported a devil, from Tasmania let us hasten to a&jj, but why, or for what purpose, except may be to allow their light to shine-ib much brighter from comparison, cannot tell. It hardly seems to hive been a good investment for the coloWy, for did the animal get away and metet with devils as black as himself the country would be none the bettejr; This Tasmanian devil is of the family ot Dasyure, a marsupial, common to Australia and Tasmania.

A writer in Lippincott's Magazine gives anything but a pleasing account of his experience with these animals* He says : — I bent forward eagerly, and searched the still misty hollow with my eyes for the first sign of. tlte thing that had startled me. Yes, there 4fc was at last. Along the bank on tqe opposite side of the stream something wa*s moving. Its . movements were leisurely, almost slow. It was not s<S vary large — not larger than a fairly large wild pig, though it was certainly not a pig. It looked strange and weird and unnatural.- What was the reason ? The chief thing seemed to* be its colour. It was black — »o den* sely, absolutely, intensely black that if seemed to me at the moment as •if HP had never seen anything really blacks before. What could it be? .. .3 Whatever it was, it didn't hurry itself.^ Slowly and deliberately it came down* the bank to the stream, and I could, see it dimly in the shadow — a blacker spot in the darkness —stoop and drink. It seemed to be a long time about it. but it moved at last. It was coming across. I watched it at it waded slowly and deliberately through the water and climbed the bank on my side of the stream. Then it stood still, and it seemed to stare up at me as I sat in the moonlight. •- By this time the moonshine was falling full upon he, and I felt certain he was\ looking at me with a strange, questioning gaze. Suddenly he raised his head and repeated the cry I had heardi/before. Now that I saw him, I felt that it was exactly the cry I should have expected from him— so strange, so weird, so savage. . ' '*

It was by an impulse, rather, than, i the result of thought, that I. did it, A curious feeling of repulsion and antagonism, which I could not have reason*, , ably explainedt prompted the Act.; Something in bis appearance, something in that savage cry, may have led to it, but at least I felt that I was in the presence of an enemy. I raised the gun to my shoulder; I covered * him deliberately ; I fired. t the very act I fancied 1«V eyes fixed me with a fierce stare of hatred. I could have sworn he was looking me in the face at the moment. I fired, and for several seconds I lost sight of * him in the smoke .but I. knew I hadn't missed my aim. ' A cry, wilder, stranger, more savage than before, followed the report of the gun. And— yet, it was answered. Not one only, : « but half a dozen cries, each like an echo of the first, rang out a weird reply. Then. I knew what it wa»-ra- : devil. Strange as it appears to the now in looking back, I had up to that moment utterly torgotten the Tasmanian devil. I had supposed the s creature to be extinct, indeed, but I might have remembered the tales I had often heard as a boy pjf its demQfl,. blackness, its strange cries, and above all, its temper of insatiable revenge. ■_ As the smoke cleared away I saw f him again. He was. rolling ;:qgjjf tbjjj^ ground, trying to tear himself savagely with fierce white teeth that glistened in the moonlight. Then he gave another of those fiendish cries, and again there came the answering echoes. He struggled to his feet, and his eyes seemed to look for me with" savage cunning glances. I watcHed \;* him as if I had been fascinated; and saw him suddenly stumble along tße v bank towards my rock. My cartridges had been intended only for shooting birds. ' -;_'

He reared himself up and put his feet on the sloping face of the rock, while all tae time hit eyei seemed to

be fixed on mine with looks of fiendish malignity. Suddenly there was a cry close behind him, and, as if encouraged by the sound, he made what appeared to be a desperate effort, and the next moment he was scrambling, rolling or climbing up the face of the rock with a motion that was quite indescribable in its clumsy eagerness. As he did so, another black figure appeared at the bottom, and I heard a splash as a third began to wade the stream. It Was growing serious indeed. I waited until he had got within a few feet of me, and then I fired. He gave a snarling howl, and rolled to the bottom. . Whtn the smoke cleared I could see ''him on the pround, but the other had bfegun to climb In his place. Slowly, Catefully, doggedly, he came on, as if W* one object in existence was to reach me. I waited till he got near the topi and then fired. He rolled half-way down, and theu he seemed to cling to tjie rock and stop. Then he began to crawl up again, gnashing hit'teethrand snapping fiercely at the places where the shot had wounded Sim. I had to fire again, this time, almost into his face, before he rolled cfown again. And so it went on* with a lameness that grew more and more horrible, with a persistency which seemed to me nothing less than diabolical. One by one they cama in answer to the cries of the wounded ; one by one they attempted to storm the rock, with the same slow, desperate, untiring energy. I used dp and yet they came. I clubbed my gun and felled them one by one. It was like the mostherrible ot nightmare dreams. No sooner did bete 'disappear than another took his p#ee. Battered, bleeding, hardly able tovcrawl, still they crept up, one by one. I seemed to myself to have stood there for hours. My head had grown dizzy, my arms had become weak and numbed. I could scarcely raise the gu¥to' strike, and everything seemed t<i' sway and quiver before my eyes. The attacks had gradually become more rare, but I think the strain of watching for them was more terrible than ever. A burning thirst, too, had begun to creep over me, and a sense of horror which I could hardly resist. It seemed long since I had struck the last blow, but I didu!t dare for a single moment to relax my watchfulness. Suddenly— it appeared to be within a yard of my foot— there was a black face, whitefiendish eyes that gleamed, and great white teeth that glistened in the. mopnb'ght. With a sudden desperate effort I heaved up the gun and steuck at it. I thought the creature answered the blow with a diabolical laugh ; that was the last thought of <which I was conscious.

For Bronihial Ooaghs- t»k« Woods' G?«»t Ptppsriment Care, 1/6 2/6.