NATURAL HISTORY OF THE KANGAROO. 



415 



The kangaroo is said to be able to clear even more than fifteen 

 feet at one bound. 



Rapidity of locomotion is especially necessary for a large animal 

 inhabiting a country subject to such severe and widely-extending 

 droughts as in Australia. The herbivorous animals which people the 

 plains of Southern Africa the antelopes are also capable of very 

 rapid locomotion. In the antelojjes, however, as in all hoofed beasts, 

 all the four limbs (front as well as hind) are exclusively used for loco- 

 motion. But in kangaroos we have animals i-equiring to use their 

 front pair of limbs for the purposes of more or less delicate manipula- 

 tion with respect to the economy of the "pouch." Accordingly, for 

 such creatures to be able to inhabit such a country, the hind pair of 

 limbs must by themselves be fitted alone to answer the jiurpose of 

 both tlie front and hind limbs of deer and antelopes. It would seem, 

 then, that the peculiar structure of the kangaroo's limbs is of the 

 greatest utility to it ; the front pair serving as prehensile manipulat- 

 ing organs, while the hind pair are, by themselves alone, able to carry 

 the animal great distances with rapidity, and so to traverse wide arid 

 plains in pursuit of rare and distant water. The harmony between 

 structure, habit, and climate, was long ago pointed out by Prof. 

 Owen. 



Fig. 5. Teeth op Kangaroo. 



The kangaroo breeds freely in this country, producing one at a 

 birth. We have young ones every year in our Zoological Gardens. A 

 large number of them ai*e reared to maturity, and altogether our kan- 

 garoos thrive and do well. One born in our gardens was lately in the 

 habit of still entering the pouch of its mother, although itself bearing 

 a very young one within its own pouch. These animals have been 

 already more or less acclimatized in England. I have myself seen 

 them in grounds at Glastonbury Abbey. Some were so kept in the 

 open by Lord Hill, and some by the Duke of Marlborough. A very 

 fine herd is now at libei-ty in a park near Tours, in France. 



It is a little more than one hundred and five years since the kan- 

 garoo was first distinctly seen by English observers. At the recom- 

 mendation and request of the Royal Society, Captain (then Lieiitenant) 

 Cook set sail in May, 1768, in the ship Endeavor, on a voyage of 

 exploration, and for the observation of the transit of Venus of the year 

 1769, which transit the travelers observed, from the Society Islands, 

 on June 3d of that year. In the spring of the following year the ship 



