THE KANGAROOS. 



209 



then, without a moment's hesitation, he stooped for- 

 ward and shot away from the hounds, apparently 

 witliout an effort, and gave us the longest run I ever 

 saw after a kangaroo. He ran fourteen miles by 

 the map from point to point, and if he had had fair 

 play I have very little doubt but that he would then 

 have beat us; but he had taken along a tongue of 

 land which ran into the 

 sea, so that, on being 

 pressed, he was forced 

 to swim across the arm 

 of the sea, which, at the 

 place where he took the 

 water, cannot have been 

 less than two miles 

 broad ; in spite of a fresh 

 breeze and a head sea 

 against him he got fully 

 half-way over, but he 

 could not make head 

 against the waves any 

 further, and was obliged 

 to turn back, when, be- 

 ing quite exhausted, he 

 was soon killed. 



"The distance he ran, 

 taking in the different 

 bends in the line, cannot 

 have been less than 

 eighteen miles, and he 

 certainly swam more 

 than two. I can give 

 no idea of the length of 

 time it took him to run 

 this distance, but it took us something more than 

 two hours, and it was evident, from the way in 

 which the hounds were running, that he was a 

 long way before us; and it was also plain that he 

 was still fresh, as, quite at the end of the run, he 

 went over the top of a very high hill, which a tired 

 kangaroo never will attempt to do, as dogs gain so 

 much on them in going up-hill. His hind quarters 

 weighed within a pound or two of seventy pounds, 

 which is large for the Van Diemen's Land kangaroo, 

 though I have seen larger. 



" ' We did not measure the length of the hop of 

 this kangaroo, but on another occasion, when the 



Fig. 262. — The Yellow-footed Rock-kangaroo (Petrogale xanlhopus) 



Boomer had taken along the beach and left his 

 prints in the sand, the length of each jump was 

 found to be just fifteen feet, and as regular as if they 

 had been stepped by a sergeant. When a Boomer 

 is pressed he is very apt to take to the water, and 

 then it requires several good dogs to kill him ; for 

 he stands waiting for them, and as soon as they 



swim up to the attack 

 he takes hold of them 

 with his fore- feet and 

 holds them under water. 

 The buck is altogether 

 very bold, and will gen- 

 erally make a stout re- 

 sistance, for if he cannot 

 get to the water he will 

 place his back against a 

 tree, so that he cannot 

 be attacked from behind, 

 and then the best dog 

 will find in him a for- 

 midable antagonist. 



'"The doe, on the 

 contrary, is a very timid 

 creature, and I have 

 even seen one die of fear. 

 It was in a place where 

 we wished to preserve 

 them, and as soon as we 

 found that we were run- 

 ning a doe we stopped 

 the hounds just at the 

 moment they were run- 

 ning into her. She had 

 not received the slightest injury, but she lay down 

 and died in about ten minutes. When a doe is 

 beat she generally makes several sharp doubles, and 

 then gets among the branches, or close to the trunk 

 of a fallen tree, and remains so perfectly still that 

 she will allow you almost to ride over her without 

 moving, and in this way she often escapes. A 

 tolerably good kangaroo will generally give a run 

 of from six to ten miles, but in general they do 

 not run that distance in a straight line, but make 

 one large ring back to the place where they were 

 found, though the larger ones often go straight 

 away.'" — Gould, Mammals of Australia^^ 



Vol. II. 



69 



