72 ANIMAL FOOD EESOXIRCES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS. 



grown forester usually weighing ten or twelve pounds. 

 It makes a superb soup, very much superior to ox-tail. 



The wallaby, too, is most commonly used for soup. 



The early settlers in the Australian colonies were 

 more driven to eat kangaroo flesh than the present ones. 



On the 21st April, 1806, we find the following entry 

 in a book on Tasmania : — 



" There being a necessity for making every possible 

 saving of the salted meat remaining in His Majesty's 

 stores, the commissary wiU receive kangaroo or emu at 

 one shilling per pound, if brought to the stores on Mon- 

 days and Fridays, taking in only the hind quarters 

 perfectly sweet, and issuing the same at the rate of two 

 pounds of fresh for one of salted meat." 



The forester is the largest of the kangaroo family, and 

 is frequently found of two hundred pounds weight. The 

 large male of the species is generally called the "old man 

 kangaroo " by the colonists. The wallaby {Halmaturus 

 sp.) and the pademelon (H. thetidis) are much smaller; 

 the average weight of the wallaby is about twelve or 

 fourteen pounds, and that of the pademelon nine or ten 

 pounds. The pademelon when cooked like a hare affords 

 a dish with which the most fastidious gourmand might 

 be satisfied. 



The kangaroo rat {Bettongia rufescens) seldom weighs 

 more than three or four pounds ; it is not, as its name 

 would import, anything of the rat species, but a perfect 

 kangaroo in miniature. The flesh of the kangaroo rat 

 resembles that of a rabbit, and it eats best when cooked 

 in the same manner. This small animal is but little 

 eaten, except by thorough bushmen, owing to the pre- 

 judice excited by the urJortunate name which has been 

 bestowed upon it ; but those who have once conquered 

 this prejudice usually become fond of it, as the flesh is 

 very palatable. 



The flesh of the great red kangaroo {Osphranter rufus) 

 is very palatable, indeed more so than that of Macropus 

 major. That of the bridle nail-tailed kangaroo {Onycho- 

 galea frmnata) is white and well tasted. 



