Miscellanea . 
371 
learn very little: are you satisfied it is not a variety? I have seen 
many with white spots about different parts of the head, which is 
said by all the hunters to be a common occurrence; the only cha¬ 
racter which appears to me to approach a specific difference is 
the redness of colouring, which has been often observed by 
hunters; the woolly nature of the fur is only the winter covering 
common to all of them. 
“ The grey kangaroo, Macropus Ocydromus, Gould, of which 
I have a very interesting series, has very thin hair in summer, 
while in winter the coat is thick and woolly. 
“ The male is called Yoon-gur, and the female Work, by the 
aborigines. This large kangaroo is tolerably abundant over the 
whole colony of Western Australia, from King George’s Sound, 
south, to forty miles north of Moore’s river, the farthest point 1 
have reached; it does not appear to confine itself to any peculiar 
description of country, being as often seen in the gum forests, 
among hills, as on the open plains and clear grassy hillocks; it is 
however more numerous in the open parts of the country, where 
it is not so liable to surprise. In travelling from Guildford to 
York, from two to four or five may occasionally be met with ; but 
farther in the interior, particularly at Gwangum plains, herds of 
thirty to fifty may often be met with: further south, beyond Ko- 
jenup, they are still more numerous; in fact, I have never seen 
in any part of Australia, so large a herd as the one I met with on 
the Gordon plains in 1840: at the most moderate calculation, 
there could not have been less than five hundred kangaroos; 
several of the party, in their astonishment, considered there were 
even a greater number than I have stated. 
“ The large full grown male is termed a Buck or Boomer, and 
attains a great size, when he becomes a most formidable oppo¬ 
nent to the best dogs in the country, few of which will ever run a 
large Boomer; this may in some degree account for the few in¬ 
stances of very large ones being killed. It is not by their greater 
speed that they are enabled to escape ; on the contrary, their 
great weight in some measure incapacitates them from running 
fast, or to any great distance, so that almost any dog may over¬ 
take them ; instead, therefore, of running away, the Boomer in- 
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