AUSTRALIA. 101 



forests are composed of eucalyptus trees which are 

 evergreen, but instead shed their bark annually; 400 

 varieties of this tree have been described; more than 

 10.000 of its indigenous plants have been classified. The 

 great variety of the fauna and flora of Australia alone 

 should be a sufficient inducement for all those who take 

 interest in natural history to visit this land so full of 

 nature's strangest productions, all of which seem to 

 point to the great age of this part of the world. 



THE KANGAROO. 



The kangaroo is a striking freak of Australia's fauna. 

 For the purpose of increasing its speed, its only de- 

 fense, nature has supplied this animal with a fifth leg 

 in the form of a long and powerful tail. Shorten the 

 ears of one of our jack-rabbits one-half, lengthen the 

 hind legs four times and add the tail of a kangaroo and 

 it would he converted into a kangaroo on a small scale. 

 This animal has a special interest for the surgeon, as 

 the numerous delicate tendons of its tail have supplied 

 a good substitute for catgut as a suturing and ligature 

 material. For more than twenty years my friend. Dr. 

 H. O. Marcy of Boston, has expounded the virtues, 

 advantages and use of the kangaroo tendon in surgery, 

 and through his influence it has become a very popular 

 substitute for catgut in the practice of many American 

 surgeons. I was somewhat astonished to find that 

 American surgeons entertain a more favorable view of 

 the utility of the kangaroo tendon than their Australian 

 colleagues. Some of the latter never use it. some oc- 

 casionally, and very few. if any. use it exclusively. It 

 will interest the devotees of the kangaroo tendon liga- 

 ture and suture to know that what they have been using 

 is, as a rule, not the tendon of the kangaroo, but of the 

 different species of wallaby. The kangaroo tendon is 

 very coarse, at least the size of an old-fashioned knit- 

 ting needle, altogether too large for general use. The 

 wallabv is a verv much smaller animal of the kangaroo 



