1770 ANIMALS 301 



these papers fall. For quadrupeds, birds, fish, etc., I 

 shall say no more than that we had some time ago learned 

 to eat every single species which came in our way ; a 

 hawk or a crow was to us as delicate, and perhaps a better- 

 relished meal, than a partridge or pheasant to those who 

 have plenty of dainties. We wanted nothing to recommend 

 any food but its not being salt ; that alone was sufficient to 

 make it a delicacy. Shags, sea-gulls, and all that tribe of 

 sea-fowl which are reckoned bad from their trainy or fishy 

 taste, were to us an agreeable food : we did not at all taste 

 the rankness, which no doubt has been and possibly will 

 again be highly nauseous to us, whenever we have plenty of 

 beef and mutton, etc. 



Quadrupeds we saw but few, and were able to catch but 

 few of those we did see. The largest was called by the 

 natives kangooroo ; it is different from any European, and, 

 indeed, any animal I have heard or read of, except the jerboa 

 of Egypt, which is not larger than a rat, while this is as 

 large as a middling lamb. The largest we shot weighed 

 84 Ibs. It may, however, be easily known from all other 

 animals by the singular property of running, or rather 

 hopping, upon only its hinder legs, carrying its fore-feet close 

 to its breast. In this manner it hops so fast that in the 

 rocky bad ground where it is commonly found, it easily 

 beat my greyhound, who, though he was fairly started at 

 several, killed only one, and that quite a young one. Another 

 animal was called by the natives je-quoll ; it is about the 

 size of, and something like, a pole-cat, of a light brown, 

 spotted with white on the back, and white under the belly. 

 The third was of the opossum kind, and much resembled 

 that called by De Buffon PJialanger. Of these two last I 

 took only one individual of each. Bats here were many : 

 one small one was much if not identically the same as 

 that described by De Buffon under the name of Fer de 

 cheval. Another sort was as large as, or larger than, 

 a* partridge ; but of this species we were not fortunate 

 enough to take one. We supposed it, however, to be the 

 Eousette or Rougette of the same author. Besides these, 



