1770 ANIMALS 301 
these papers fall. For quadrupeds, birds, fish, ete, I 
shall say no more than that we had some time ago learned 
to eat every single species which came in our way; a 
hawk or a crow was to us as delicate, and perhaps a better- 
relished meal, than a partridge or pheasant to those who 
have plenty of dainties. We wanted nothing to recommend 
any food but its not being salt; that alone was sufficient to 
make it a delicacy. Shags, sea-gulls, and all that tribe of 
sea-fowl which are reckoned bad from their trainy or fishy 
taste, were to us an agreeable food: we did not at all taste 
the rankness, which no doubt has been and possibly will 
again be highly nauseous to us, whenever we have plenty of 
beef and mutton, etc. 
Quadrupeds we saw but few, and were able to catch but 
few of those we did see. The largest was called by the 
natives kangooroo; it is different from any European, and, 
indeed, any animal I have heard or read of, except the jerboa 
of Egypt, which is not larger than a rat, while this is as 
large as a middling lamb. The largest we shot weighed 
84 lbs. It may, however, be easily known from all other 
animals by the singular property of running, or rather 
hopping, upon only its hinder legs, carrying its fore-feet close 
to its breast. In this manner it hops so fast that in the 
rocky bad ground where it is commonly found, it easily 
beat my greyhound, who, though he was fairly started at 
several, killed only one, and that quite a young one. Another 
animal was called by the natives je-quoll ; it is about the 
size of, and something like, a pole-cat, of a light brown, 
spotted with white on the back, and white under the belly. 
The third was of the opossum kind, and much resembled 
that called by De Buffon Phalanger. Of these two last I 
took only one individual of each. Bats here were many: 
one small one was much if not identically the same as 
that described by De Buffon under the name of Fer de 
cheval. Another sort was as large as, or larger than, 
a, partridge; but of this species we were not fortunate 
enough to take one. We supposed it, however, to be the 
Rousette or Rougette of the same author. Besides these, 
