KANGAEOOS. 473 



I ever knew of any defence being made by these animals ; while 

 their arboreal congeners, the oppossums, daysures, and flying 

 squirrels fight most desperately, and inflict serious injury upon 

 those who handle them incautiously. At very considerable dis- 

 tances, on a still night the thud of a kangaroo's feet in the act of 

 drumming may be heard, three or four times in succession ; and 

 when one has stalked into the midst of a ' mob ' among rocks, ferns, 

 or other good cover, it is amusing to hear the kangaroos com- 

 municating to one another by this means their apprehension of 

 the presence of an enemy, although uncertain of his position, and 

 undetermined as to the safest line of escape." 



The Australian settlers hunt them with dogs, which run by 

 sight, and not by scent, and are a cross between the staghound 

 and the English greyhound. Both these breeds conferring the 

 points necessary for a good kangaroo dog, namely, speed and 

 strength. The first is an absolute essential, for the bounds of 

 of a kangaroo, or " old man," as the Australians call it, are 

 made so rapidly and of such great length as to tax the speed of a 

 good dog, for each hop, it has been ascertained, exceeds twenty 

 feet at a time. The strength is necessary, for few dogs are a 

 match for an adult great kangaroo. If it cannot disable or kill 

 its adversary with the claws on its formidable hind-legs, it will 

 seize him with its fore-arms, and if water is near carry him off, 

 and therein do its best to drown him. 



If hard pressed, a kangaroo always, as a last resource, makes 

 for water, and when it is reached turns at bay and waits for its 

 pursuer, for here it has a decided advantage. Standing up, it 

 closes with its antagonist, and deliberately tries to deprive it of 

 life by holding it under the water : a dog that has to support 

 himself by swimming has, therefore, but a slight chance of escape. 

 Hunian beings also are occasionally treated in the same way, so 

 that a kangaroo is not an animal by any means to be despised. 



A communication made to " Notes and Queries " in 1867, 

 quotes the following paragraph, from the Grenville Advocate, a 

 respectable journal, published at Smythesdale, a town twelve miles 

 firom Ballarat, which substantiates this statement : " A reliable 

 correspondent furnishes us with the following remarkable in- 



