May,! O'Donohue, Wanderings on the Murray Fioail-I'hiiu . \z, 



1915 1 



the abundance and variety of bird-life. In the horse paddoi I 

 the Old Man Saltbush, Atriplex nummularia, formed dense 

 masses of great extent, and often exceeded a height of ten feet, 

 whilst elsewhere it and the Grey Saltbush, Atriplex cinerea, 



were eaten l>v stock close to the ground. Anion- these growths 

 Eremophila maculata was often found in profuse bloom, and 

 with the previous season's fruits scattered thickly at its base. 

 The Nardoo, Marsilea quadrifolia, and the Spoon Mudwort, 

 Limosella Curdiana, grew luxuriantly on the moist bottoms 

 of the billabongs. 



At dusk, whilst taking a well-earned rest on the station 

 verandah, and viewing the parrots, pigeons, doves, bower- 

 birds. &c, as they came to roost in the pepper-trees, Johnny, 

 a full-blooded aborigine, arrived with a young " roo " 

 (kangaroo) — the folk at Kulkyne have no time for the first 

 two syllables. The event proved a very fortunate one, since 

 it led up to a statement by Messrs. Thompson and Briggs 

 totally at variance with the accepted belief that the doe 

 kangaroo voluntarily abandons her young one to ensure its 

 safety when she is in danger of being overtaken by her pur- 

 suers. The general opinion entertained by naturalists, and 

 certainly expressed by all writers of natural history, is that 

 the doe, when hard pressed by the dogs, draws the young one 

 from her pouch and tosses it into a convenient bush for safety. 

 and returns for her offspring if she succeeds in evading her 

 pursuers. In common with many others. I accepted this as 

 the true interpretation of what might be deemed an un- 

 paralleled maternal trait, but was always sceptical that the 

 slender Eorearms of the doe possessed the strength, or the paws 

 the grasping power, to draw a vigorous and weighty "joey" 

 from her pouch and to cast it to a distance whilst she was 

 careering over rough country, possibly at the rait 1 of forty 

 miles an hour. 



Our bushmen, who had spent their lives amid the animals 

 of the wilds, and. who were as keen in observing the ways of 

 Nature as the greatest enthusiast of the Club, were surprised 

 at the view generally entertained on the subject. Briefly, 

 their opinion, based on hundreds of cases that had come under 

 their notice, was that the young one. by its weight, gradually 

 and greatly enlarged the pouch, as the mother, by her enormous 

 Leaps, imparted to it a more or less vertical motion, and at 

 the same time injured it by the action of her hips, this con- 

 tinued till the young one, coming fairly in contact with the 

 mother's hip, was sent spinning from the pouch, high in the 

 air, to fall bruised and breathless on the ground. "I have 

 picked up scores of 'joeys' dropped thus," said Mr. Briggs. 



All were injured across the loins, and all I carried home died 



