66 AUSTRALIA AND THE AUSTRALIANS. 



The tail, however, is largely used and very much 

 relished for soup. 



It is, I think, as good as ox-tail, from which it can- 

 not very easily be distinguished if well spiced. 



One very great objection to kangaroo meat, from 

 whatever part of the body it may be taken, is its 

 marked lack of juiciness. In this particular, however, 

 it does not differ from several other kinds of wild meat. 



Wild game of any kind in Australia for the table 

 does not bear favorable comparison with that of 

 Canada. This may be accounted for partly, so far as 

 birds are concerned, by the almost entire absence of 

 those wild berries and fruits, which Canada produces 

 in such profuse abundance, and both this and that may 

 be largely explained by the sad lack of those refresh- 

 ing and life-giving rains with which a benign Provi- 

 dence has so kindly favored our northern land. 



For nearly one-half the year (occasionally more 

 than one-half) the fields and forests of Australia are 

 literally parched. What the sun may not do, in the 

 way of withering the grass, the hot winds from the 

 north, coming down over the country as out of a blast 

 furnace, take the greenness, and almost the life, out 

 of vegetation, so that, upon the whole, animal life in 

 its native condition is not so favored nor so flourishing 

 as with us. 



