THE KANGAEOO. 



The discovery of the kangaroo was made by Captain 

 Cook during his first voyage in New South Wales. The 

 wonder and astonishment of that great traveller must 

 have been great on his beholding, for the first time, the 

 extraordinary movements of this, to him, new animal. 

 Its size (he met ■with the Macropus giganteus), its form 

 and general appearance, its mode of progression, unlike 

 that of most quadrupeds, hopping or jumping more like 

 a large bird than moving like a mammal, would be 

 calculated to produce, for a while, upon the observer a 

 strange feeling of bewilderment. Notwithstanding that 

 kangaroos are now common all over Europe, in every 

 menagerie, in all the zoological gardens, are figured and 

 described in books and works upon Natural History, and 

 alluded to and talked of everywhere, yet the same strange 

 feeling of surprise and astonishment is exhibited by every 

 person who for the first time sees a living kangaroo ; and 

 the wonderment is greatly increased if, by chance, they 

 see the head or legs of a young one protruding from the 

 pouch of a female. This feeling of astonishment appears 

 almost universal, much in the same way as the fear of 

 snakes prevails among us, as a rule. 



The cause was jjrobably the recency of the discovery 

 of kangaroos. People living in London, and who have the 

 opportunity of seeing and knowing all the discoveries that 



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