2 1 6 YOUNG ANIMALS AT THE ZOO 
right angles to its body, and its toes turned up like a 
duck’s, it looks like a gigantic new-born rabbit. It 
has a pale, petunia-coloured stomach, and the same 
artistic shade adorns the soles of its feet. It has a 
double chin, and its eyes, like a bull-calf’s, are set on 
pedestals, and close gently as it goes to sleep with a 
bland, enormous smile. It cost ^500 when quite 
small, and, to quote the opinion of an eminent grazier, 
who was looking it over with a professional eye, it 
still looks like “ growing into money.” There are 
connoisseurs in hippopotamus-breeding who think it 
almost too beautiful to live. We had hoped to find a 
prairie-dog family, as several of the smaller rodents 
had produced young ones; but though several of the 
solemn little fellows were sitting bolt upright, 
cramming straw into their mouths with both hands 
as fast as they could, like a conjuror, swallowing tape, 
there were no little prairie dogs. The kangaroos and 
wallabies, on the other hand, had several “ joeys”; and 
nothing could well be stranger than this dual existence 
of mother and young, in which, contrary to all 
precedents, the young is carried by its parent, though 
it is quite independent of its milk. Thus an old 
kangaroo or wallaby will put its head down to drink, 
while the young wallaby, wide awake and independent 
in the pouch, picks up a piece of cabbage, and, 
holding it in its hands, eats it like a boy eating an 
apple and looking out of a window. The long, sharp 
claws of the hind-legs are doubled forward when in the 
pouch, and project like a couple of pens on either side 
