THE LIFE OF MAMMALS 
“Although harmless and inoffensive when unmolested, nature has fur- 
nished the kangaroo with a dreadful weapon of defense in the powerful 
hind claw, with which it can rip up a dog, like the tusk of a boar; and I 
have seen a large kangaroo take up a powerful dog in its fore claws, bear- 
fashion, and try to bite it. I never but once had one turn on me, and this 
was an old male which I had knocked down, and when I went up to it on 
the ground, it sprung up and came at me; it luckily fell from exhaustion 
as I stepped back. Like deer, when wounded, they will often take to water, 
and, if they get a dog in their claws at such a time, always try to drown it. 
But I do not Doe in the fiction that they will carry a dog to a water hole 
for that purpose.” 
The smaller kangaroos are called “wallabies” or “brush” 
kangaroos, since they frequent scrub jungle and rocky places 
rather than open plains. These smaller species 
furnish most of the leather and furs sent to mar- 
ket, and also the best venison; their skins are exported in 
vast quantities (350,000 were disposed of in the London sales 
of 1905), yet certain species remain numerous. There are 
also other wallabies, as the rock wallabies (Petrogale) of cen- 
tral Australia, which leap and climb about their rough resorts 
with remarkable agility, fleeing to deep holes when pursued. 
“When on precipitous cliffs they ascend the rocks in groups, 
jumping from side to side, and alighting on such small ledges 
that it seems almost impossible for them to obtain foothold. 
During the day they remain concealed in caves and holes from 
which they issue forth at evening, while on moonlight nights they 
may be seen abroad at all hours . . . they also have the power 
of easily ascending the sloping trunks of trees.” 
A genus (Onychogale) of similar mountain dwellers is dis- 
tinguished by having a horny nail on the tip of the tail. A 
third genus is that of the hare-wallabies (Lagorchestes), of 
which Gould’ gives some interesting notes. 
Wallabies. 
“T usually found it solitary and sitting alone on a well-formed seat under 
stalks of a tuft of grass on the open plains. For a short distance its fleet- 
ness is beyond that of all others of its group that I have had an opportunity 
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