Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-03-25
WILD BUFFALoEs IN AUSTRALIA.
There Are Many Herds of Them in the
Unsettled Parts of the Big Island

Unsettled Parts of the Big Island.
Although have been over thirty-seven
years II Austr> liza, it was not until eighteen
months ago that | was aware that there
was a breed of Wild buffaloes in these col
onies, and / venture To say that not ner
cent. of the Inhabitants of Queensland, or
even half that number, are aware of the
fact CAUTIOUSLY enough, have two stimuli
taneous inquiries about them-ore from
Professor Wallace, of Edinburgh, and tho
other from Il gentleman in Michigan, U.
:. n | laid myself out to make full IN
quiries on the subject and it has occurred
to me that the public viii be interested to
know the result Mr. b. H. Purcell, who
has seen several of them in the far north,
and was present at the death of one gave
me minute description of them, which
tallies exactly with what l learned from
other sources
Mr.. L. Palmer. VI. l.. A, informs me
that one of the islands on the northern
coast is fully -ocked with them, and iso-
lated bulls from the herd on the mainland
occasionally find their way as far east as
one of his gulf stations, and that several
| have reached Mr. Hams Lawn Hill sta
ton. In DR.. Leichhard's journal of his eX-
| petition from Moreton bay to Port Essing
| ton in 1874 - he mentions that Mr.. Roper
and the black boys, Charley" and
| Brown" ran down and shot one thirty
| miles from Port Essington, and that they
were said to be numerous there and were
| called by the blacks ''anaborro."
Leichhardt states that they ARE the Off
| spring of the stock which had either strayed
| from the settlement at Raffies bay or been
| left behind when that establishment was
broken up. They We're originally intro
| : t. Mala isl I
struck with the remarkable thickness of
| their skin (almOst an inchj, and with the
| solidity of their bones, which contained
| little marrow, but that little was,eXtreme-
| " savory." Mr.. Palmer states that the
! bull killed on his run weighed almost a
ton, was extremely broad and we'll devel-
| oped in the foreq larters, but taperiug of
! in the headquarters
! next directed my inquiries to the mu-
| scum, and here I was most fortunate in
| getting Information from the man above
all others in Queensland most competent
| to give it-namely, Mr.. Spalding, the tax
| idermist of the museum, who spent many
| months in the cen ter of their great haunt
near Port Darwin. Mr.. Spalding showed
| me the head and horns of one of these buff
| faloes that made its way eastward in the
| direction of Charters Towers, and was shot
| there some two years ago. The horns are
most remarkable, being square at the butt
and four inches thick. They rise in a semi
| circle, but incline backward so that the
animals, when they charge (which they do
furiously), have to put their heads between
their forelegs.
The horns are extremely coarse CORFU
gated, and of dirty brown color Mr.
Spalding cOrroborated the statements of
Messrs. Palmer and Purcell as to the buff
faloes being very numerous-in many
thousands-at Port Essington, Raff1es bay
and on Melville island. A man has been
| engaged for Il number of years shoot
| ing them and making handsome income
| by selling the hides. On account of the ex-
IRENE thickness of hide they resist an ortli-
nary cartridge, and heavy leaden bullets
have to be used. They are what are famil-
iarly known is mud" buffalo, having
| very little hair on their bodies which are
| of n dirty reddish brown color
! Itmay not be generally known that num-
Der of Timor ponies were introduced at Port
| Essington with the buffaloes These have
also increased to a large herd, and Mr..
! Spalding describes them as exceedingly
| handsome little animals.-P. K. Gordon il
Brisbane Queenslander.