Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/426

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

may have recalled to mind, more or less, the appearance presented by-some hornless deer. Their chief mode of locomotion (that jumping action necessitated by the great length of the hind-limbs) must be familiar to all who have observed them living, and also, very probably, the singular mode in which the young are carried in a pouch of skin in the front of the belly of the mother.

But "What is a kangaroo?" The question will raise in the minds of those who are not naturalists the image of some familiar circumstances

Fig. 1.—Kangaroo (Macropus).

like those just referred to. But such image will afford no real answer to the question. To arrive at such an answer it is necessary to estimate correctly in what relation the kangaroo stands to other