TREE-LIVING KANGAROO 
kangaroos are essentially ground-hopping creatures. 
Nevertheless there is a whole genus of kangaroos 
known by the technical name of Dendrolagus, which 
name, it will be observed, expresses the fact of their 
arboreal proclivities, whose life is spent hopping along 
branches and not bounding over the grass. There are 
about three different species of these tree kangaroos, of 
which a new one has been lately found and named after 
the traveller Lumholz. The build of the kangaroo does 
not seem at first sight to be suitable to nice balancing 
and clambering upon branches. Yet it is highly 
interesting to notice how, with the minimum expenditure 
of energy in the way of alteration, Nature has been able 
to convert a purely terrestrial animal into one which 
is as distinctively arboreal. The long tail remains ; 
but it is furry throughout and of somewhat more 
slender dimensions ; it is no longer wanted as a prop 
for the animal when progressing slowly along the 
ground. It rather serves the Dendrolagus as a balancing 
pole to aid in its successful leaps from branch to branch. 
And for this purpose it need not be quite so massive 
and so comparatively short-haired as in kangaroos and 
wallabies. The toes also, which have greatly prolonged 
nails in the leaping kangaroo, have these nails much 
shorter in the tree-frequenting beast. The fore limbs, 
too, are rather longer in proportion than those of kan- 
garoos ; otherwise there is but little change in habit. 
Dendrolagus has the mild somewhat asinine features of 
kangaroos, the same two projecting under incisors 
like French caricatures of the English “ Mees,” which 
it is to be presumed can work upon each other like the 
blades of a pair of scissors; they can at any rate in 
the common kangaroo, a fact which was shown a good 
many years ago. In short, there is nothing of far 
reaching importance either externally or internally, 
that differentiates this creature from other kangaroos. 
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