The Wily "Goanner" by Louis Becke — Read

In the early part of the year 1899 a settler named Hardy, residing at / Glenowlan, in the Rylstone district of New South Wales, about 150 miles / from Sydney, lost numbers of his lambs during the lambing season. / Naturally enough, dingoes were suspected, but none were seen. Then other / sheep -- men began to lose lambs, and a close watch was set, with the / result that iguanas, which are very numerous in this part of the / country, were discovered to be the murderers of the little "baa-baa's. " / The cause of this new departure in the predatory habits of the / "goanner" -- which hitherto had confined his evil deeds to nocturnal / visits to the fowl-yards -- is stated to be the extermination of the / opossum, which has driven the cunning reptile to seek for another source / of food. And, as before the shooting of kangaroos, wallabies, and / opossums was resorted to as a means of livelihood by hundreds of bushmen / who had no other employment open to them, the young of these marsupials / furnished the iguana with an ample supply of food, the theory is very / probably correct. Poison will be the only method of destroying or / reducing the numbers of the iguana, who, robber as he is, yet has his / good points, as has even the sneaking, blood-loving native cat -- for both / are merciless foes to snakes of all kinds; and 'tis better to have an / energetic and hungry native cat and a score of wily iguanas working / havoc among the tenants of your fowl-house than one brown or an equally / deadly "bandy-bandy" snake within half a mile.

In that part of New South Wales in which the writer was born -- one of the / tidal rivers on the northern coast -- both snakes and iguanas were / plentiful, and a source of continual worry to the settlers.