The wild dogs, or dingoes, are odious animals. They may be heard yelling at night to the terror of the shepherd, and the farmer. They are bold enough to rush into a yard, and to carry off a calf, or a pig; and when they have dragged it into the woods, they cruelly eat the legs first, and do not kill it for a long while. These three--the kangaroo, the opossum, and the dingo,--are the principal beasts of Australia. Among the birds, the emu is the most remarkable. It is nearly as tall as an ostrich, and has beautiful soft feathers, though not as beautiful as the ostrich's. But the most curious point in the emu is,--it has no tongue. You may suppose, therefore, that it is neither a singing bird, nor a talking bird; it only makes a little noise in its throat. But if _it_ is silent, there are numbers of parrots, and cockatoos, to fill the air with their screams. In England, these birds are thought a great deal of, but in Australia, they are killed to make into pies, or into soup. Parrot-pie and cockatoo-soup, are common dishes there. However, many of the parrots and cockatoos, are caught by the blacks, and sold to the English, who send them to England in the ships. There are not such singing birds in Australia, as there are here. Though there is a robin red-breast there, he does not sing as sweetly as he does here. But there are _laughing_ birds in Australia. There is a bird called the "laughing jackass." He laughs very loud three times a day. He begins in the morning;--suddenly a hoarse loud laugh is heard,--then another, then another,--till a whole troop of birds seem laughing all together, and go on laughing for a few minutes;--and then they are all quiet again. Such a noise must awaken many a sleeper on his bed. At noon the laugh is heard again. At evening there is another general fit of laughter. These birds are not like children, who laugh at no particular hour, but often twenty times a day. The laughing jackass is almost as useful as a clock, and it is called, "the bushman's clock." BOTANY BAY. This is a famous place, for here the English first settled, and here it was thieves were sent from England as a punishment. Some were sent there for fourteen years, and some for twenty-one years, and some for life. How did the place get the beautiful name of Botany? which means "the knowledge of flowers." Because there were so many beautiful flowers seen there, when Captain Cook first beheld it. Yet the name Botany Bay, does not seem beautiful to us; for it reminds us not of roses, but of rogues; not of violets, but of violent men; not of lilies, but of villains. SYDNEY.