NOTES FOR GRAZIER AND DEALER.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9869, 28 October 1897, Page 6

NOTES FOR GRAZIER AND DEALER.

".Weekly Press and Referee."

[By Straggler.]

It would almost appear as if the New Zealand kea had an imitator in Australia. I mentioned recently that a number of sheep had been destroyed in the Goulburn river and Bywong districts, when it was thought that the work was done by English fox es. Mr H. P. Miller, hoAvever, writes to the Sydney Morning Herald stating that some weeks ago he had some sheep attacked in a similar manner to those reported to be destroyed by foxes. He found some eaglehawks feasting at mid-day on his sheep that had just been killed. Concluding that the hawks had killed the sheep, he placed strychnine on the feet, neck, and shoulders of the carcase, and poisoned a lot of very large birds. Mr Miller has had no sheep killed since, and this, as he says, casts strong suspicion on the hawk, which may have learned to attack weak sheep during the drought. However, the fact that the hawks Avere found eating the carcase shortly after death proves little, since hawks are very keen and prompt in discovering a disabled and dying animal. Another correspondent of the Herald says that hundreds of sheep are killed in his district by tiger cats, which fasten on to the sheep's back and eat into the kidneys Avhile the victim is alive. The writer states that he has seen a kangaroo that was killed in this way by a tiger cat. The cats aro protected because they are supposed to kill rabbits, but the correspondent doubts their usefulness, as they are too large to f• How the burrows. They breed rapidly, as many as six young ones being found in a family.

An interesting note on cross-breeding of cattle comes from Texas. Mr Charles Goodnight, of Clarendon, has been engaged for seventeen years in crossing the American buffalo on various breeds of domestic cattle. The results of his experiments are quite interesting and to some extent instructive to the student of cattle breeding. In 1879 he captured four buffalo calves, and has now a herd of thirty-3.x pure-blood buffaloes from which to draw his supply of blood on that side of the process. Among the somewhat curious results he has obtained are the following.-—Ho has never succeeded in getting the buffalo to cross with any breed of cattle s_A-e tho native Texas coav, the Galloway, and the Polled Angus. The halfbreeds from the Galloways are hornless, thus showing the strong prepotent power of the Galloway blood. This, cross, however, proves very uncertain. With the Polled Angus the cross is far uiore certain and satisfactory. A Btrange feature is that with this breed all of the calves of the first cross are heifers. Mr Goodnight has never yet succeeded in getting a bull calf from the first cross. The half-breed Polled Angus heifers breed every year, whereas the buffalo cow breeds only every second year. When the half-breed cows are mated with a pure blood buffalo bull male calves are often the result, but every three-quarters male thus obtained has proved barren (sterile) though the threequarters heifers breed readily. It would prove an interesting study to inquire, into the reason, if possible, for the uniform production of heifers on the first cross with a view of throwing some light on the law which governs the establishment of sex. Certain it-is that there is such a law, or else there could not be such marked uniformity in one direction. There is chance here for considerable speculation as to the hidden cause or causes.

The Ohanpo correspondent of the Waikato Argus writes:—"A settler living above Otorohanga, near tho Waitomo caves, tells mc that he has suffered considerably from wild dogs. These dogs are descended from a lot that were left in the native villages when the natives deserted them during the war of 1863. The animals of course took to the bush and lived on wild pigs and game. They were, mongrels of all breeds, and their progeny now is very numerous and will be a formidable foe to sheep farmers in that district. Thelimestoneholesaboundingeverywhere in that locality are another _ot_rce of great less to the grazier, one man told mc that out of a mob of 135 yealinga bis loss from this cause was twenty-two last winter. Sometimes there is little or nothing to indicate a hole and the beast suddenly • drops through a thin crust of earth into a ■cavity. The Government, I understand, 'have acquired something like 300,000 acres in that district, which no doubt in time will vbc thrown open-for settlement, but from all. ' I can bear it is only fit-for grazing runs, and • only second-class at .hat. Those who havo-:-had experience tell-me the grass runs out in; fcthe limestone country Che same as- in the-' -Waikato, but in the former,it cannot be owing to the land being too rough. Ho be-ploughed." Mr James-_.owe informs mc that he ha. purchased from Messrs Wilson Bros., of ;C_aney-'s Comer, their herd of pure-bred T-amworth pigs, consisting of six imported ancfenineteen of their progeny. Mr ißowe intoa33 to exhibit specimens of the -breed at itu-t oj-mina f___-_»."*