Queer Beasts of the Bush

Little is heard of the “bunyip” these enlightened days, but the blacks, and even the white settlers in the early days of colonisation, believed in the existence of that mysterious animal, and were afraid of meeting it in the bush at night.

It is recorded that William Buckley, the “wild white man,” saw the bunyip during his peregrinations with the blacks, in a lake or billabong not far from the Murray.

He said that it appeared to be about the size of a calf, with a covering of what looked like slaty-grey feathers, but he could not learn from the blacks whether it had a head or a tail, or what it looked like, as those who looked at it were supposed to die immediately!

Seals used frequently to go up the Murray many years ago, and enter the
billabongs and swamps in flood time. They would stay there for some time, feeding on fish, waterfowl, and occasionally a platypus.

When the floods receded they would be stranded, and it would be difficult for them to find their way back to the river.

My father, Mr. Dudley le Souef, mentioned that they usually lay up during the day time, and came out to feed at night.

Buckley’s aborigines had never seen seals so far from the sea, and it is probable that one of those animals was the “bunyip” which was regarded with so much awe. A seal was killed at Conargo (N.S.W.) in 1850. It was stuffed, and set up in the local hotel, where it stayed for many years. In November of last year one was seen near Mildura, showing that the “bunyip” continues to journey inland for more than 700 miles. There was much excitement at Docker’s Plains, near Wangaratta, last year, when a seal was seen in a swamp. It had escaped from a circus at Yackandandah some time previously, and had gone down the Ovens River. The ”bunyip” was found in the Koo-wee-rup swamp many years ago — a fact which gave the town of Bunyip its name.

The fierceness of the “bunyip” is, of course, legendary, but there are still some
terrifying animals abroad if reports may be believed. Last February a man at Myrtleford, in the Bright district, said that he was attacked by an animal at night, while on his way home. The creature tore his shirt as he was about to open his gate.

He declared that it was about 7ft. in height, with a round, hairy head, and four tusks, and that it stood on two legs and looked like an ape. Apparently it was a large kangaroo which felt that it was about to be attacked.

There is an animal in North Queensland which has greatly frightened people in the last 60 years. It has never been seen by a naturalist, and many leading naturalists doubt its existence. But Mr. A. S. le Souef, of Taronga Park, Sydney, is satisfied that there is such an animal, and he quotes in “Wild Animals of Australia” the descriptions of the beast given by those who have seen it. He calls it a marsupial cat.

It is found in the impenetrable jungle country, where men seldom go and it lives.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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