BY EDGAR R. WAITE. 575 



a lasso, they saw how easy it was and have since always caught 

 them in this manner, excepting when out of reach; in this case 

 they make the animal jump: as soon as it reaches the ground one 

 boy holds its head down with a forked stick while another passes 

 a bag over its hind quarters and slips it over its head. 



" The best time to hunt them is early in the morning while the 

 scent is fresh. A dingo or mongrel, the former preferred, is used, 

 and follows the scent to the foot of the tree which the kangaroo 

 has climbed to camp for the day. If the tree be a low one, it is 

 tolerably easy to find the animal, but it often happens that they 

 go from one tree to another before they find a suitable 'camp,*^ 

 and then it becomes necessary for a native to ascend a high tree 

 in the vicinity so as to be able to look down on the surrounding- 

 trees, as the kangaroo sits right out in the sun and is more easily 

 seen from above than from below. If one approaches quietly, it 

 is quite easy to catch the animal by the tail and slip it into a bag 

 while up the tree; but the least noise rouses them, and it is 

 surprising how quickly they can travel, jumping sometimes twenty 

 to thirty feet from one tree to another, and I have seen one jump 

 fully sixty feet fi'om a high tree to the ground and not hurt itself 

 at all. When jumping it seems always to land on its fore feet, 

 and though I have repeatedly shaken them down from great 

 heights I have never seen one injured, as they always, like a cat, 

 fall on their feet. 



" The tail is never used to hang by, only to balance with, though 

 I have often seen one bend its tail over a branch while it reached 

 down below the branch upon which it was sitting to secure 

 some beri-ies. The kangaroos can stiffen the tail so that it 

 stands straight out like a rod. When caught and kept in 

 captivity they soon become quiet and take readily to eating bread, 

 sweet potatoes, apples, oranges, mangoes and the rinds of sweet 

 potatoes and yams; also the leaves of several of the Eucalypti, 

 white cedar ( Melia composit'i, Willd.) and many other trees, the 

 names of which I do not know. In the scrub they seem to have 

 a partiality for the bird's nest fern (Asjylenvxm nidus), the 

 moustera (? Rhaphidophora pinnata, Schott), and a small climber 



