NATURAL HISTORY OF THE KANGAROO. 



411 



animals its place iu the scale of animated beings as also its relations 

 to space and time; that is, its distribution over the earth's surface to- 

 day, in connection with that of other animals more or less like it, and 

 its relation to the past life of this planet, in connection with similar 

 relations of animals also more or less like it. In other words, to un- 

 derstand what a kangaroo is, we must understand its zoological, geo- 

 graphical, and geological conditions. And my task in this j^aper is 

 to make these conditions as clear as I can, and so to enable the reader 

 to really answer the question, " What is a kangaroo ?" 



But before proceeding to these matters, let us look at our kangaroo 

 a little closer, and learn something of its structui-e, habits, and history, 

 so as to have some clear conceptions of the kangaroo considered by 

 itself, before considering its relations with the universe (animate and 

 inanimate) about it. 



The kangaroo (Fig. 1) is a quadruped, with very long hind-limbs 

 and a long and rather thick tail. Its head possesses rather a long 

 muzzle, somewhat like that of a deer, with a pair of rather long ears. 

 Each fore-paw has five toes, urnished with claws. Each hind-limb has 

 but two large and conspicuous toes, the inner one of which is much the 

 larger, and bears a very long and strong claw (Fig. 2). On the inner 



Fig. 2. Foot of Kangaroo. 



side of this is what appears to be a very minute toe, furnished with 

 two small claws. An examination of the bones of the foot shows us, 

 however, that it really consists of two very slender toes united togeth- 

 er in a common fold of skin. These toes answer to the second and 

 third toes of our own foot, and there is no representative of our great- 

 toe not even that part of it which is inclosed in the substance of our 

 foot, called the inner metatarsal bone. Two other points are specially 

 noteworthy in the skeleton. The first of these is that the pelvis (or 

 bony girdle to which the hind-limbs are articulated, and by which they 

 are connected with the back-bone) has two elongated bones extending 

 upward from its su])erior margin in front (Fig. 4, a). These are called 

 marsupial bones, and lie within the flesh of the front of the animal's 

 belly. The other point is that the lower, hinder portion of each side 

 of the lower jaw (which portion is technically called the '' angle ''"') is 

 bent inward, or " inflected," and not continued directly backward in 

 the same })lane as the rest of the lower jaw. 



A certain muscle, called the cremaster muscle, is attached to each 



