Family V. Macropodidæ.
(Kangaroos.)
The aspect of the Kangaroos is singularly striking, the anterior parts are light and graceful, while the posterior parts of the body, the hinder limbs, and the tail are very stout and muscular. The hinder feet are greatly lengthened: a naked callous pad runs along the whole sole from the heel to the toes. They are furnished with one very large middle toe, and an outer one, which is of somewhat less size; both of these are armed with large solid nails, slightly curved, convex, and sometimes ridged on the upper surface, and flat beneath; on the inner side of the foot are two other toes, very small and slender, and soldered as it were into one, being covered with a common skin; the bones, however, and the claws are distinct. The fore-feet have five toes each, of which the middle one is the longest; they are armed with large, strong, curved nails.
The attitudes and motions of these animals differ greatly from those of most other quadrupeds. In their ordinary position the body is nearly upright, the head and fore parts being elevated, and leaning a little forwards; the whole resting partly on the hinder limbs, the long soles of which are applied to the ground, and partly on the thick and muscular base of the tail.
When grazing, or proceeding leisurely, the small fore-feet are sometimes applied to the ground, and used in progression: but when the Kangaroo wishes to proceed rapidly, he uses only the strong hind-feet, springing forward with enormous bounds, leaving his pursuers far behind.
The animals before us are exclusively herbivorous, grazing, like deer or antelopes, in the grassy plains of their native country, and associating in herds. Their disposition is mild and docile; and their physiognomy has much of that gentle expression which characterizes most of the Ruminants. The eye is large, full, and liquid, the ears large and erect, and the muzzle is taper. They are easily reconciled to confinement; bear our climate well, and breed freely in the parks of Europe.
Genus Macropus. (Shaw.)
The characters of the Family are found most fully developed in the true Kangaroos, which are distinguished from the Kangaroo-rats by the total absence of canines, which in the latter are found in the upper jaw. The dentition is thus expressed:—inc. 62; can. 00; false mol. 1—11—1; mol. 4—44—428. In some species however, the false molars are not present. There is a vacant space of considerable extent between the incisors and the molars: the latter have nearly square crowns, which, before they have become worn by grinding, present two transverse ridges.
The head is lengthened; the ears very large; the upper lip cleft; the whiskers short and few; the hind-limbs very robust; the tail long, very thick at the base, and well covered with hairs.
The stomach is large and sacculated; forming two long pouches, divided into cavities: balls of agglutinated hairs, similar to the bezoars often found in goats and oxen, are occasionally met with in the stomach of the Kangaroo. A true ruminating power appears to be associated with the complex character of this organ; the animal ruminates in the erect posture, but the act does not take place with the same regularity and frequency as in the placental Ruminantia.
The young of the common Kangaroo, when born, is little more than an inch in length, including the tail, perfectly naked, and somewhat resembling in its colour and semi-transparency an earthworm. The hind-limbs are considerably shorter than the fore ones, the divisions of the toes, however, being distinct. When first presented to the nipple of the parent, its muscular powers are not sufficient to enable it to derive sustenance therefrom. There is, therefore, a peculiar muscle attached to the teat, which by its contraction, produces an injection of the milk into the mouth of the helpless young. But this provision of creative wisdom and care is not the only one that meets us here. Professor Owen has observed that the act of swallowing can scarcely be supposed to take place invariably at the same instant with the maternal action producing the flow of milk; yet, if at any time this should not be the case, the consequences might be fatal, from the reception of the fluid into the windpipe. To obviate this danger there is a special contrivance; the air-passage being continued in the form of a cone, which projects into the palate, and communicates with the nostrils, while it is completely shut up from the mouth; as it is in the Cetacea. Thus the injected milk passes down in a divided stream, on each side of the windpipe, into the stomach.
"Thus aided and protected by modifications of structure," observes Professor Owen, "both in the system of the mother, and in its own, designed with especial reference to each other's peculiar condition, and affording, therefore, the most irrefragable evidence of creative foresight, the feeble offspring continues to increase from sustenance exclusively derived from the mother for a period of about eight months. The young Kangaroo may then be seen frequently to protrude its head from the mouth of the pouch, and to crop the grass, at the same time that the mother is browsing. Having thus acquired additional strength it quits the pouch, and hops at first with a feeble and vacillating gait, but continues to return to the pouch for occasional shelter and supplies of food till it has attained the weight of ten pounds. After this it will occasionally insert its head for the purpose of sucking."
The great Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus, Shaw), the largest species yet known, was the first seen by Europeans. It was first discovered during Captain Cook’s first voyage, in 1770, on the coast of New South Wales. "On Friday, June 22nd," says that navigator, "a party who were engaged in shooting pigeons for the use of the sick of the ship, saw an animal which they described to be as large as a greyhound, of a slender make, of a mouse-colour, and extremely swift." The same animal was soon after seen by Captain Cook himself, and by Mr. Banks, and at length the wishes of the party to examine this extraordinary creature, were gratified, by the shooting of a specimen by Mr. Gore; the individual from which the figure given in the voyage was drawn, and probably the same which afforded to Dr. Shaw the occasion of constituting the genus.
KANGAROO.
Pennant's account of the habits of this species is terse and accurate. "Inhabits the western side of New Holland, and has as yet been discovered in no other part of the world.[1] The natives call it Kanguru. It lurks among the grass; feeds on vegetables; drinks by lapping; goes chiefly on its hind legs, making use of the fore-feet only for digging, or bringing its food to its mouth. The dung is like that of a deer. It is very timid. At the sight of men flies from them by amazing leaps, springing over banks seven or eight feet high, and going progressively from rock to rock. It carries its tail quite at right angles with its body when it is in motion; and when it alights often looks back; it is much too swift for greyhounds; is very good eating, according to our first navigators; but the old ones, according to the report of more recent voyagers, were lean, coarse, and tough. The weapon of defence was its tail, with which it would beat away the strongest dog.
"In the spring of the present year [1793] I had an opportunity of observing the manners of one brought into the capital alive. It was in full health, very active, and very mild and good-natured: on first coming out of its place of confinement, it for a little time went on all-fours, but soon assumed an upright attitude. It would sport with its keeper in a very singular manner; it first placed its tail in a perpendicular manner, erected its body on it as a prop, and then raising its whole body, darted its hind-legs on the breast of the man. It was capable of striking with great force, if provoked; and it could scratch violently with its fore-claws."
The Great Kangaroo does not make use of its tail in leaping, but in walking, and still more in standing: the male, when excited, will sometimes stand on tip-toe and on his tail, and is then of prodigious height. In fighting, he does not stand on the tail and one leg, but balances himself for a moment on the tail only, and strikes forward with both hind-legs. The male attains a much greater size than the female; measuring nearly eight feet in total length, of which the tail may appropriate a little more than three feet: the height of an individual of these dimensions, when in the ordinary erect attitude, would be upwards of five feet.
The excellence of the flesh of the Kangaroo, which is considered equal to that of venison, is appreciated by the natives as well as the colonists in New Holland. "The native employs several modes of obtaining it. Sometimes he steals upon it under the covert of the trees and bushes, till within range of his unerring spear. Sometimes numbers of men unite in a large party, and, forming a circle, gradually close in upon the animals with shouts and yells, by which the animals are so terrified and confused, that they easily become victims to the bommerengs, clubs, and spears which are directed from all sides against them." The European settler pursues it, secundum artem, with horses and hounds. A breed of dogs, crossed between the bull-dog and the greyhound, fierce, powerful, and of great fleetness, are used for the course. Mr. Gould states that many of these dogs are kept at the stock-stations in the interior for the sole purposes of hunting the Kangaroo and the Emu. The same gentleman speaks of the formidable resistance which the former animal is able to offer to the dogs. "Although," he says, "I have killed the largest males with a single dog, it is not advisable to attempt this, as they possess great power, and frequently rip up the dogs, and sometimes cut them to the heart with a single stroke of the hind leg. Three or four dogs are generally laid on, one of superior fleetness to pull the Kangaroo, while the others rush in upon and kill it. It sometimes adopts a singular mode of defending itself by clasping its short but powerful arms around its antagonist, leaping away with it to the nearest water-hole, and there keeping it beneath the surface until drowned. With dogs the old males will do this whenever they have an opportunity, and it is also said that they will attempt the same with man."
Mr. Gunn and Mr. Gregson speak of the excellent sport which the "Boomer," as the Great Kangaroo is there called, affords in the open plains of Van Diemen's Land. The latter thus describes a chase, in a letter to Mr. Gould. "I recollect one day in particular, when a very fine boomer jumped up in the very middle of the hounds, in the open. He at first took a few high jumps with his head up, and then, without a moment's hesitation, he stooped forward, and shot away from the hounds apparently without effort, and gave us the longest run I ever saw after a Kangaroo. He ran fourteen miles by the map, from point to point, and if he had had fair play, I have little doubt that he would have beaten us. But he had taken along a tongue of land that ran into the sea, so that on being hard pressed, he was forced to try to swim across the arm of the sea, which cannot have been less than two miles broad. In spite of a fresh breeze, and a head-sea against him, he got fully half way over; but he could not make head against the waves any farther, and was obliged to turn back; when, being quite exhausted, he was soon killed. The distance he ran, taking the different bends of the line, was not less than eighteen miles." When he took to the water he was a long distance before the hounds, but still quite fresh. The hind-quarters weighed seventy pounds. "We did not measure the distance of the hop of this Kangaroo, but on another occasion, in which the boomer had taken along the beach, and left his prints in the sand, the length of each jump was found to be fifteen feet, and as regular as if they had been stepped by a sergeant. When a boomer is pressed, he is very apt to take to the water, and then it requires several good dogs to kill him; for he stands waiting for them, and as they swim up to the attack, he takes hold of them with his forefeet, and holds them under water. The buck is very bold, and will generally make a stout resistance; for, if he cannot get to the water, he will place his back against a tree, so that he cannot be attacked from behind; and then the best dog will find him a formidable antagonist. The doe, on the contrary, is a very timid creature; and I have even seen one die of fear."
Perhaps it is scarcely correct to speak of the Great Kangaroo as being gregarious. From the circumstance of their favourite food being found in particular spots, such as pieces of land recently burnt over, they are often seen assembled together; yet they never associate in flocks, properly so called, all moving together. The sort of country which they prefer consists of low grassy hills or plains skirted by thin open forests of brushwood, or patches of high ferns, tall grass, or underwood, known by the term scrubs, in which they shelter themselves during the heat of the day.
Of a very beautiful species, somewhat less than the preceding, the White-tailed Kangaroo (Macropus Parryi, Bennett), Sir Edward Parry has given some interesting details. It was caught by the natives near Port Stephens, in New South Wales; having been thrown out of its mother's pouch when the latter was hunted. At that time it was somewhat less than a rabbit; but having continued in the possession of Sir Edward Parry for more than two years in New South Wales, besides six months on the passage to England, it was considered (when this account was published) as full-grown. It had never been kept in confinement until it was embarked for England, but lived in the kitchen, and ran about the house and grounds like a dog, going out every night after dark into the "bush," or forest, to feed; and usually returned to its friend, the man-cook, in whose bed it slept, about two o'clock in the morning. Besides what it might obtain in these excursions, it ate meat, bread, vegetables; in short, everything given to it by the cook, with whom it was extremely tame, but would allow nobody else to take liberties with it. It expressed its anger when very closely approached by others, by a sort of half-grunting, half-hissing, very discordant sound, which appeared to come from the throat, without altering the expression of the countenance. In the daytime it would occasionally, but not often, venture out to a considerable distance from home; in which case it would sometimes be chased back by strange dogs, especially those belonging to the natives. From these, however, it had no difficulty in escaping, through its extreme swiftness; and it was curious to see it bounding up a hill, and over the garden-fence, until it had placed itself under the protection of the dogs belonging to the house, especially two of the Newfoundland breed, to which it was attached, and which never failed to afford it their assistance by sallying forth in pursuit of its adversaries.
Specimens of this beautiful species, as well as of the Great Kangaroo, and of several other kinds, have at different times lived in the menagerie of the Zoological Society of London; as also in the splendid menagerie of the Earl of Derby, at Knowsley Park.
- ↑ It is now ascertained to be extensively spread in the country intermediate between New South Wales and South Australia, and to be common also in Van Diemen's Land.