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THE NATUEAL HISTOEY OF THE KANGAEOO. 
Br ST. GEOEGE MI Y ART, F.R.S. 
HE kangaroos have now become familiar objects to all who 
visit our Zoological Gardens, or who are familiar with any 
considerable zoological museum. 
Their general external form, when seen in the attitude they 
habitually assume when grazing (with their front limbs touch- 
ing the ground), may have recalled to mind, more or less, the 
appearance presented by some hornless deer. Their chief mode 
of locomotion (that jumping action necessitated by the great 
length of the hind limbs) must be familiar to all who have 
observed them living, and also, very probably, the singular 
mode in which the young are carried in a pouch of skin in the 
front of the belly of the mother. 
But 44 What is a kangaroo ? ” The question will raise in the 
minds of those who are not naturalists the image of some fami- 
liar circumstances like those just referred to. But such image 
will afford no real answer to the question. To'arrive at such an 
answer it is necessary to estimate correctly in what relation the 
kangaroo stands to other animals — its place in the scale of 
animated beings — as also its relations to space and time ; that 
is, its distribution over the earth’s surface to-day, in connexion 
with that of other animals more or less like it, and its relation 
to the past life of this planet, in connection with similar rela- 
tions of animals also more or less like it. In other words, to 
understand what a kangaroo is, we must understand its zoolo- 
gical, geographical, and geological conditions. And my task in 
this paper is to make these conditions as clear as I can, and so 
to enable the reader to really answer the question, 64 What is 
a kangaroo ? ” 
But before proceeding to these matters, let us look at our 
kangaroo a little closer, and learn something of its structure, 
habits, and history, so as to have some clear conceptions of the 
kangaroo considered by itself, before considering its relations 
with the universe (animate and inanimate) about it. 
[PLATE CXXVIII.] 
