

256 MARSUPIALS AND THEIR SKINS 





Tring have become common objects of the district. 

 At large, when feeding or lying on their sides in all 

 kinds of graceful poses, with their ' hands ' drooping 

 languidly, and their large watchful eyes turned in the 

 direction of their visitor, they are almost as pretty as 

 deer, and the beauty of their fur is far greater than 

 that of most of the cervid^e. This may be seen even 

 at the Zoo, where they are kept in very small runs, 

 which give them no adequate room for exercise, and 

 hinder the proper development of their fur. In the 

 great red kangaroo, the fur of the male (born in the 

 Gardens) is deep, soft, and woolly, a mixture of brick- 

 red and gray. On the throat the colour heightens 

 to a warm rose colour. The fur of the female is a 

 beautiful French gray, and both tints and texture are 

 admirable in both. Of the many species of kangaroo 

 and wallaby living outside the tropical belt of Australia, 

 there are few which, if killed at the proper season, 

 would not supply a handsome, warm, and durable 

 lining-fur for coats at a low price. Here, however, 

 kangaroo skins are used solely for leather, japanned 

 boots being largely made from them, and the fur is 

 scraped off and mixed with other * oddments ' which 

 form material for felt. Six thousand five hundred bales 

 of kangaroo skins were recently bought for this purpose 

 at a single sale, and with them those of eighty-five 

 thousand wallabies and fifty-five thousand wombats, or 



