A Kangaroo Hunt 



or ghostly eucalyptus glades but was dot- 

 ted more or less thickly with some of the 

 many species of Macropida ; and it is safe 

 to say that never, in any other country in 

 the world, has any animal been so widely 

 disseminated or so numerous as was the 

 kangaroo in primeval Australia. 



But a hundred years of civilization have 

 wrought a change. The great marsupial 

 has entirely disappeared from the most 

 settled portions of the country, and in 

 many of the wilder parts has become as 

 rare an apparition to-day as is the Ameri- 

 can bison upon the plains of Montana. 

 Indeed, one humorous gentleman whom I 

 met in Melbourne professed to regard the 

 kangaroo as an entirely mythical animal, 

 deserving only to be classed with the sea- 

 serpent, the dragon, and the " bunyip " of 

 the black fellow, whose awful voice is 

 heard in the dead silence of the midnight 

 forest, but whose form has never yet been 

 seen of man. Without taking this wag- 

 gish proposition too seriously, one would 

 not go far wrong in accepting its general 

 tenor as indicating fairly well the true 

 state of the case ; for it is quite certain 

 that the kangaroo has so nearly disappeared 

 from most of its old haunts as to have al- 

 ready taken on some of that legendary 



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