MARSUPIALS AND MONOTREMES 31, 
last-named superlatively memorable occasions. The entire 
tribe, men, women, and all capable youths, participate in 
the sport. Fires are lit by one section of the tribe, accord- 
ing to the direction of the wind, encircling a vast area of 
the country, while the other section posts itself in detach- 
ments in advantageous positions to intercept the terrified 
marsupials as they fly in the presumed direction of safety 
to escape the devouring element. Spears and waddies and 
boomerangs, in the hands of the expert natives, speedily 
accomplish a scene of carnage, and the after feast that 
follows may perhaps be best left to the imagination of 
the reader. The encroachments of neighbouring natives 
on the happy hunting-grounds that time and custom have 
conceded to be the sole monopoly of any one particular 
tribe is most strenuously resented, and constitute one of 
the commonest sources of their well-nigh perpetual 
inter-tribal battles. 
A kangaroo battue, as carried into practice by European 
settlers in those few remaining districts where the animal 
is sufficiently abundant to constitute a pest by its whole- 
sale consumption of the much-prized pasturage, is far more 
deadly in its results to the unfortunate marsupials. Exist- 
ing sheep-fences, supplemented by a large suitably en- 
closed yard, are first specially prepared for the reception 
of the expected victims. All the settlers, stockmen, 
and farm hands from the country round are pressed into 
service, and assemble on horseback or on foot at the 
appointed rendezvous at break of day. A widely spreading ; 
cordon of beaters being told off, a systematic drive is then | 
commenced, which results in all the animals being driven Photo by D, Le Souef, Melbourne 
towards and collected within the enclosed yard. The cul- FOOT OF TREE-KANGAROO 
minating scene is one of wholesale slaughter with club and Bees an : 
gun. From these battues none of the unfortunate animals seal sur RI Ap ane 
escape, as they are so closely hemmed in. 
The first record of the existence of the kangaroo, coupled with its characteristic name, is 
found associated, it is interesting to observe, with the history of one of the earlier voyages of 
Captain Cook. The neighbourhood of Cooktown, in Queensland, claims the honour of supplying 
the first example of the animal which was brought to Europe and astonished the zoologists 
of that time by the singularity of its form and reported habits. Captain Cook happened — 
in July, 1770—to be laying up his ship, the Ewaeavour, for repairs, after narrowly 
escaping total wreck on the neighbouring Great Barrier Reef, in the estuary of the river 
subsequently coupled with his ship’s name. Foraging parties, dispatched with the object of 
securing, if possible, fresh meat or game for the replenishment of the ship’s well-nigh 
exhausted larder, returned with reports of a strange creature, of which they subsequently 
secured specimens. Skins were preserved and brought to England, but it was some little time 
before the zoological position and affinities of the creature were correctly allocated. By some 
naturalists’ it was regarded as representing a huge species of Jerboa, its near relationship to 
the previously known American Opossums being, however, eventually substantiated. The closer 
acquaintanceship with the peculiar fauna of Australia that followed upon Captain Cook’s 
memorable voyage of discovery along the coast-line of that island-continent soon familiarised 
naturalists with many other of the allied species of which the kangaroo constitutes the leading 
representative. 
