KANGAROO, SQUIRREL AND RAT 31 



It was a simple thought, but a happy one. Sitting 

 up like a gentleman, he has his hands free to scratch 

 his ribs or twitch his moustache. And when he 

 goes he needs not to put them to the ground, for 

 his great tail so nearly equals the weight of his 

 body that one pair of legs keeps the balance even. 

 And so the kangaroo, almost the lowest of beasts, 

 comes closer to man in his postures than any other. 

 The squirrel also sits up and uses his forepaws for 

 hands, but the squirrel is a sybarite who lies abed 

 in cold weather, and it is every way characteristic 

 of him that he has sent his tail to the furrier and 

 had it done up into a boa, or comforter, at once warm 

 and becoming. See, too, how daintily he lifts it 

 over his back to keep it clean. The rat is a near 

 relation of the squirrel zoologically, but personally 

 he is a gutter-snipe, and you may know that by 

 one look at the tail which he drags after him like a 

 dirty rope. Others of the same family, cleaner, 

 though not more ingenious, like the guinea-pig, 

 have simply dispensed with the encumbrance ; 

 but the rabbit has kept enough to make a white 

 cockade, which it hoists when bolting from danger. 

 This is for the guidance of the youngsters. Nearly 

 every kind of deer and antelope carries the same 

 signal, with which, when fleeing through dusky 

 woods, the leader shows the way to the herd and 

 the doe to her fawn. 



But of beasts that graze and browse, a large 

 number have turned their tails rather to a use 

 8 



