290 DYING KANGAROO. 



the ground, an indication of their having been 

 recently engaged in active warfare, leaving be- 

 hind them, like the Kilkenny cats, only some 

 morsels of flue. Although we had many indi- 

 cations of these animals having visited the flat, 

 we rarely saw them, except upon the ranges, 

 particularly those spots where, the grass having 

 been recently burnt, the young herbage was 

 springing up.* It is usual for kangaroos to fre- 

 quent the high land during the summer, seek- 

 ing the more sheltered situations during winter. 



The females are not permitted to eat the flesh 

 of the kangaroo, for if they did (the selfish 

 males observe) " our dogs would die ;" nor are 

 the women, it is said, allowed to eat 'the flesh 

 of the " Bandicoot" (called Kudjun, Mandu, or 

 Gorun, by the natives) until they have borne a 

 child. 



The dying kangaroo would afford a subject 

 worthy of the inimitable pencil of Landseer, as 

 it lies prostrate on that ground, where, but a 

 few minutes before, it fed and gambolled, un- 



* These animals, like the cattle, frequent those places 

 where the grass, having been recently burnt, they meet 

 with the sweet young herbage. This may account for our 

 finding them so numerous about those situations, in pre- 

 ference to the plain, although the latter seemed to offer the 

 temptation of more luxuriant but coarser feeding. 



