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ALMOST HUMAN 
nine feet fence as if he were a swallow ; and the rest followed his example. 
Pleasure turned to tragedy in the winking of an eye. Some of the poor 
things smashed into the unyielding fence and fell back dead with broken 
backs or broken necks. Others failed to clear the top, and being tripped, 
fell for ever on the other side or on top of their companions. Those, and 
they were many, who did get clear, were off like the wind to join their 
braver or more desperate friends who had run the gauntlet earlier in 
the day. All that were captured and placed in the boxes for trans- 
mission to the Zoo were three! 
During the heat and excitement of the moment when all the prey 
was escaping before their eyes, a rough stock rider, who was not afraid 
of anything living on two legs or four, determined to capture one 
kangaroo at all hazards. He saw one cunning creature making a series 
of battering assaults upon the netting near the ground, and as he 
watched, it managed to make a small passage way underneath, and began 
to squeeze its body through. He closed with it, and in his eagerness 
to catch it he fell on the ground, but held on fast to one limb as the 
creature slowly extricated itself from the net fence. The man flung 
his arms around its chest before it could get upright, and in an instant 
there was a whirling mass of tumbling man and beast as they rolled 
over and over in the dust, locked in each other’s arms. Each had 
securely pinioned the other, and neither could let go in the swelter and 
smother of the dust and anxiety. The kangaroo could have killed the 
man had it so wished, but apparently all it asked for was liberty, and 
in its struggles, while it tore his leggings off as if they had been muslin, 
and ripped his corduroy breeches and stripped his shirt from his back, it 
only inflicted a few superficial scratches upon his body. A number of 
interested stockmen gathered around to watch the fight, but while they 
were all ready with advice as to how to catch the animal securely, none 
of them ventured into the mad welter to give him the benefit of 
assistance. At last the kangaroo got on top, and with a mighty wrench 
it succeeded in getting free of the man. It gave him a fearsome knock- 
down blow that sent him backwards, with arms and legs in the air, too 
breathless from the fall to move; and so the man had to watch his mark 
give one of the mightiest, highest, widest leaps a kangaroo has ever been 
seen to make, as it made certain of the liberty it had secured at so high 
a cost. 
At another drive where it was hoped a specimen or two would be 
obtained for the Zoo the procedure was different. It was at Woodgate, 
near Yarram, on the Gippsland line, in a beautiful bit of hazel scrub. A 
number of fine shots hid themselves in the undergrowth, and beaters 
