OEDER OP MARSUPIALS. 



21 



another species (Z*. inustuH), inhabiting the same countrj^, the fore 

 and hind limbs are about equal ; while in a third New Guinea 

 species {Ilacropus Brunii) the fore limbs are unusually large for 

 an animal of this group. 



According to circumstances, these animals walk or leap ; and 

 their tail plays a great part in either case. In walking they first 

 place their four feet on the ground ; then leaning on those which 

 are in front and on their tail, stretched out like a rigid bar, they 

 raise their hinder parts, bringing up at the same time their two 

 posterior close to their two anterior legs, and moving the latter 

 forward to begin again the same manoeuvre, and so on repeatedly. 

 One can understand that they cannot move very quickly in this waj^, 



and so they have recourse to another 

 expedient when they are pursued, 

 or when they want to leap over any 

 obstacle they find in their road. 

 The fore legs then remain unem- 

 ployed ; they hang idly along the 

 body. Squatting on its hind legs, 

 the tail stifle and leaning on the 

 ground like a prop, as it does when 

 the animal is walking, the Kangaroo 

 bounds, as if it were propelled for- 

 wards by a spring, and alights a 

 little farther on, where it begins 

 the same exercise over again, and 

 thus on, indefinitely, till it chooses 

 to stop. The larger species of Kan- 

 e-aroo clear as much as 10 metres in 

 length* in a single bomid, and can 

 jumjJ from 2 

 to 3 metres 

 in height, 

 i, Nothing is 



~ " more curi- 

 ous than to 

 see them 

 traversing space with the rapidity of arrows, and, like the giants 



* The metTe = 39-37079 inches. 



Fig. 5.— Skeleton of tlie Sooty Kangaroo. 



