What a terrifying tale! A rabbit trapper was out doing his rounds in 1910 when his dogs alerted him to the presence of a frightening monster.
The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate 1 Jun 1910 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article86005265
The description of this creature is pretty amazing isn’t it?
“Looking round he was rooted to the spot with horror to find a strange-looking animal gazing at him. It is described as being something in the shape of a man, with long shaggy hair; tusks, resembling those of an old boar pig, projecting: about four inches from the mouth. On his hands and foot were long horny spikes, resembling a goat’s horns and a long smooth tail.”
Eeeek!
I think these kinds of tales are mainly a cover-up for a person being frightened by something quite harmless and, either consciously or unconsciously, needing to have a suitably scary story to make their fear seem justified. Conveniently, there is no way of verifying such a tale!
Usually these kinds of stories have a “and we ran inside and slammed the door” kind of ending. This one is slightly different in that the monster caught and devoured one of the trapper’s dogs during the chase. I find that to be a very interesting part of the story.
Unless this drama was entirely fabricated for the paper, what was the real fate of the dog? For the trapper to appear at Mr. Crawley’s farmhouse in terror, and minus one dog, would certainly take some explaining, although I am not sure the story of a shaggy haired, spiky handed, horned, long tailed monster is one you want to have to keep straight for any length of time!
Buried words and Bushwa. 
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