Notices of New Books. 7693 



turn a mob of kangaroo when fairly off; they may divide, but they 



will keep on the way they are heading. Like sheep they always follow 



a leader. Their principal food appears to be the tender sprouts of 



small shrubs and heather quite as much as grass, but there is a small 



kind of spike grass, brown on the under side, called the kangaroo 



grass, to which they are very partial. They will also come at night 



into the small bush inclosures, and nibble off the young blades of wheat, 



oats, &c. 1 often fancied they might be kept out of such places by 



encircling the fence with sewells, which we used when deer-shooting 



in the forests at home. These sewells are long lines of pack-thread, 



with two white feathers tied crosswise on the line, about a yard apart, 



strung up a yard or four feet from the ground on slicks. I never knew 



a fallow deer face them. I think we might have used them with good 



success in driving kangaroo, but until the game becomes scarce and 



more valuable the hunter will rarely go out of the old-fashioned routine 



to procure it. Although the kangaroos feed off the ground, they do 



not always appear to use the fore paws as a support, but crouch down. 



1 have only now and then observed them browsing off the trees in a 



standing position, and I wonder we do not oflener see them feeding 



in this manner, for which their upright posture and fore arms seem 



pecuharly adapted. When in confinement they will eat bread, of which 



they seem very fond, holding it in their fore paws and nibbling it like 



a squirrel. They are very subject in the bush to tape-worms, and I 



have taken dozens out of the stomach of one which I have been cutting 



open. Like the sheep they can go a long time without water, and I 



never could detect them frequenting any particular water holes at night 



for the purpose of drinking. I have known their camping places on 



some of the plains miles away from any water hole. They appear to 



keep much in the neighbourhood of cattle. The kangaroo is altogether 



a very domestic, interesting, inoffensive animal, and I often regretted 



that we had no better or wilder substitute for the red deer in this country. 



As most of my readers are probably aware, the kangaroo, like nearly 



every other animal indigenous to Australia, is ' marsupial,' i. e., the 



female is provided with a pouch outside the bottom of the stomach, in 



which are the teats, to one of which the young foetus is attached during 



the period of gestation, 1 believe about sixty days, and when fully formed, 



as soon in fact as the young one begins to live, it becomes detached 



from the teat, which now supplies it with milk. When the young one 



leaves the teat it is in an equal state of development to the new-born 



offspring of any other animal ; in fact, this pouch appears to be the 



womb of all these marsupial animals, and not, as many suppose, 



