432 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Kangaroos. 



Espiritu 

 Santo is not r 

 part of New c 

 Holland. 



told Banks that he had seen " an animal about the size 

 of, and much like, a one gallon cagg. It was, says he, 

 as black as the devil, and had wings ; indeed I took it 

 for the devil, or I might easily have catched it, for it 

 crawled through the grass." In the end Banks concluded 

 that the crawling devil was a large bat ; the modern 

 historian (Kitson) says it was a flying fox. 



But greatest excitement was caused by news of "an 

 animal as large as a greyhound, of a mouse colour, and 

 very swift." Banks himself got an imperfect view of the 

 strange monster ; " he was not only like a greyhound in 

 size and running, but had a tail as long as any greyhound's ; 

 what to liken him to I could not tell ; nothing that I 

 have seen at all resembles him." Later, the monsters 

 were chased by Banks's dog : " but they beat him owing 

 to the length and thickness of the grass, which prevented 

 him from running, while they at every bound leapt over 

 the tops of it. We observed, much to our surprise, that, 

 instead of going on all fours, the animal went only upon 

 two legs, making vast bounds, just as the jerboa does." 

 At last the Second Lieutenant " had the good fortune 

 to kill the animal which had so long been the subject 

 of our speculation. To compare it to any European 

 animal would be impossible, as it had not the least re- 

 semblance to any one I have seen." Next day they ate 

 it for dinner, and it " proved excellent meat." Later, 

 they spent a day " hunting the wild animal," and killed 

 " a very large one, weighing eighty-four pounds." 



Banks saw many other remarkable things. The nests 

 white ants reminded him of Druidical monuments. 

 The pinnace brought back cockles so large that one of 

 them contained twenty pounds of meat, more than two 

 men could eat. The coxswain, who was a little man, 

 said that he had seen a shell so large that he had been able 

 to get inside it. Cocoa-nuts were picked up crested 

 with barnacles ; " a sure sign that they have come 

 by sea," probably from the land discovered by Quiros. 

 How far that land lay to Eastward Cook thought it hard 

 to say. But at all events he had, so he claimed, made 



