THE KANGAEOO. 21 



scarce and valuable. For driving, a slow hound is better 

 than a fast one. 



Snaring kangaroo with a thick wire snare tied to a 

 post or log, and set in their runs in the bush, or a pad- 

 dock fence, answers well when a man is camped in a 

 good country, and in regard to the skins, is better than 

 shooting them. Snaring properly, however, requires no 

 little skill and care, and an immense deal of attention. 

 Snares set in the bush-runs are dangerous, on account of 

 the cattle, and the kangaroo soon drops down to snares 

 set in a fence. The snai'es should be visited night and 

 morning, and a man cannot be sufficiently blamed, who 

 sets his snares in the forest and neglects to see to them 

 regularly ; for, independent of the chance there is of a 

 cow or dog being hung up (and I have taken more than 

 one valuable dog out of a snare), it is an act of the 

 greatest cruelty to let a miserable kangaroo remain for 

 hours in a snare, struggling to free itself. I have often 

 shot a kangaroo which must have been snared for a day 

 or two. In the summer time here, when the water-holes 

 are drying up, the bullocks and cows often get stuck in 

 the mud, where they remain to die in a state of the 

 greatest misery, unless pulled out. Sometimes when fast 

 in, the station-master will not give himself the trouble 

 to pull them out ; and I once remember a miserable 

 cow in a water-hole, on the plains, for ten days, which at 

 length died there, although I told the owner of it. Had 

 I shot it, I should probably have been blamed. I have 

 also seen bullocks standing in a pen against a slaughter- 



