NATURAL HISTORY OF THE KANGAROO. 409 



thQ Accademia del Gimento^ at Florence, under the presidency of Prince 

 Leopold dei Medici. This Academy promised great things for science. 

 It was open to all talent. Its only fundamental law was " the repu- 

 diation of any favorite system or sect of philosophy, and the obliga- 

 tion to investigate Nature by the pure light of experiment," 



The new Academy entered into scientific investigations with 

 energy. Borelli in mathematics, Kedi in natural history, and many 

 others, pushed on the boundaries of knowledge. Heat, light, mag- 

 netism, electricity, projectiles, digestion, the incompressibility of 

 water, were studied by the right method and with results that en- 

 riched the world. 



The Academy was a fortress of science, and siege was soon laid to 

 it. The votaries of scholastic learning denounced it as irreligious. 

 Quarrels were fomented. Leopold was bribed with a cardinal's hat 

 and drawn away to Rome; and, after ten years of beleaguering, the 

 fortress fell: Borelli was left a beggar; Oliva killed himself in de- 

 spair.^ 



From the dismissal of the scientific professors from the University 

 of Salamanca by Ferdinand VII. of Spain, in the beginning of this 

 century, down to sundry dealings with scientific men in our own land 

 and time, we see the same war continued. 



Joseph de Maistre, uttering his hatred of physical sciences, declai'- 

 ing that man has paid too dearly for them, asserting that they must 

 be subjected to theology, likening them to fire good when confined 

 but fearful when scattered about this brilliant thinker has been the 

 centre of a great opposing camp in our own time an army of good 

 men who cannot relinquish the idea that the Bible is a text-book of 

 science. 



[To be continued. 1 







NATURAL HISTORY OF THE KANGAROO. 



By ST. GEORGE MIVART, F. R. S. 



THE kangaroos have now become familiar objects to all who visit 

 our Zoological Gardens, or who are familiar with any consider- 

 able zoological museum. 



Their general external form, when seen in the attitude they habitu- 

 ally assume when grazing (with their front limbs touching the ground), 



^Napier, "Florentine History," vol. v., p. 485. Tiraboschi, "Storia della Litera- 

 tura." Henri Martin, "Histoire de France." Jevous, "Principles of Science," vol. ii., 

 pp. 36-40. Libri, in his " Essai sur Galilee," p. 3Y, says that Oliva was summoned to 

 Rome and so tortured by the Inquisition that, to escape further cruelty, he ended his 

 life by throwing himself from a window. For closing, by church authority, of the Acad- 

 emy, " I Secreti," instituted for scientific investigation at an earlier period, wc reference 

 to Porta in this article. On Porta, sec Sprengel, " Histoire de la Medecine," vol. iii., 

 T 239. 



