152 



range about at perfect liberty. It set out every night after dusk 

 into the bush to feed, returning generally about two o'clock in the 

 morning. In addition to what it obtained on these excursions, it 

 ate^ meat, bread, vegetables, &c. Occasionally, but rarely, it ven- 

 tured out in the daytime to a considerable distance, in which case 

 it would sometimes be chased back by strange dogs : these, how- 

 ever, it always outstripped by its superior swiftness, until it placed 

 itself under the protection of the dogs of the house. It died, from 

 the effects of an accident, almost immediately after its arrival in 

 England. 



Detailed Notes of its dissection by Mr. Owen were read. The 

 structure of its principal viscera corresponds in general with that of 

 the same organs in the greater Kangaroo, but there are some dif- 

 ferences observable in the anatomy of the two species. The pucker- 

 ing of the stomach, which is occasioned in Macr. major by three 

 longitudinal bands, one extending on each side from the oesophagus 

 along the lesser curvature, and the third passing along the line from 

 which the great epiploon is continued to the spleen and transverse 

 colon, depends in Macr. Parryi on the lateral bands alone, there 

 being no mesial one. The different segments of the intestinal cansd 

 bear the same relative proportion to each other in both species ; but 

 the length of the several segments, and consequently of the whole 

 canal, is less as compared with that of the body in Parry's than in 

 the greater Kangaroo, — a fact which is in direct accordance with the 

 more mixed nature of the food in the former. The spleen in Macr. 

 Parryi was deeply notched at its free trenchant margin ; in Macr. ma- 

 jor it appears to be always entire. The mesial cm/- rfe-sac of the vagina 

 did not extend quite so far down in Macr. Parryi, as it does in the 

 better-known species. 



In the stomach were found two hair-balls of an oval shape, not 

 rounded as they generally are in the Ruminants, which are most 

 obnoxious to these formations. One of them was 3, and the 

 other 2 inches in the long diameter. They were entirely com- 

 posed of the hairs of the animal, matted together and agglutinated 

 by the mucus of the stomach. Mr. Owen remarks on the interest 

 which attaches to this resemblance to the Ruminating tribes, to 

 which the Kangaroos make so near an approach in the complexity 

 and magnitude of the stomach, and the simplicity of the cacum and 

 colon. He states that he has " more than once observed the act of 

 rumination in the Kangaroos preserved in the Vivarium of the So- 

 ciety. It does not take place while they are recumbent, but when 

 they are erect upon the tripod of the hinder legs and tail. The ab- 

 dominal muscles are in violent action for a few minutes ; the head is 

 a little depressed ; and then the cud is chewed by a quick rotatory 

 motion of the jaws. This act was more commonly noticed after 

 physic had been given to the animals, Avhich we may suppose to have 

 interrupted the healthy digestive processes : it by no means takes 

 place with the same frequency and regularity as in the true Rumi- 

 nants." 



