POUCHED MAMMALS, OR MARSUPIALS. 177 



Amboyna an outlier of the Australian region and 

 described by a naturalist. The state of zoology at 

 that date was, however, far too imperfect to admit of 

 the importance of the discovery meeting with due 

 recognition. 



A still more important discovery was, however, made 

 in the year 1770, during one of the voyages of the 

 great Captain Cook, when Sir Joseph Banks and others 

 of the party landed on the coast of New South Wales, 

 and for the first time were made acquainted with the 

 now well-known Kangaroos. The species which was 

 then first revealed to the eyes of Europeans was the 

 largest of the group, and is commonly known as the 

 Great Ked Kangaroo; but many other species have 

 been since observed, one of which is represented in 

 Fig. 52. We can well imagine the astonishment with 

 which Banks and his party gazed for the first time on 

 the herd of Kangaroos in their native wild ; the strange 

 form of these creatures, with their long hind limbs, 

 short fore paws, and enormous tail, together with the 

 huge leaps by which they progress, marking them out 

 as totally different from any Old World animal. The 

 Kangaroo may, indeed, be regarded as what naturalists 

 term a very specialised kind of animal, since we find 

 several more or less nearly allied creatures, in which 

 the fore and hind limbs are not so disproportionate in 

 length, and which, therefore, depart less widely from a 

 normal type of structure. The advantage of the leap- 

 ing mode of progression and the upright position of 

 the body to the Kangaroo appears to be that the 



