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SKETCHES IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
CHAPTER IX.
Natural history often considered a dry study—People of this opinion had better skip Chapters IX. and X.—Garrison of cats—How it is disposed of—Cats as playthings—Cat brings in yellow lizard and green snake—Bob-tailed Guana—Scarcity of scorpions and abundance of lizards—Ubiquity of bronze lizard—"Mountain Devil"—Similarity to granite lichens—Timothy missing—Brought back by smiling boy—Dies, and obliged to be buried for want of arsenical soap—Untameable Noombat—Supposed pig in cabbages—Impossible to identify, satisfactorily, creature called Bunny-ar—Tradition of alligator—Black snake—Binnahan's escape—"Bunch of black-puddings"—Palmer-worms—Trapdoor spiders—Walking-stick insects—Present of kangaroo—Kangaroo's mode of self-defence—Dangerous guest at meal-times—Jacky drinks sugar-beer—Little old native brings dog—The chase—New propensity—Jacky succumbs to privation from beer—Kangaroo hops away with baby—Modes of dressing flesh of kangaroo—Fur counterpanes—Kangaroo rats and "boodies"—Dog fails to make distinctions—A domestic tyrant—Emu's feathers—Opossum—Bishop Salvado's opinion to be taken with reservation—Opossum's noiseless mode of walking—Supernumerary claw—Various hiding-places tried by Possie; finally selects carpet-bag—Fondness for flowers—I am obliged to admit that Possie eats birds—Possie plays truant—Returns to supper—Opossum's mode of eating apricots—Possie and her daughter—Domestic duties—Fondness for society—Possie supposed to have rejoined her relations—Tender retrospections.
When Goldsmith began to write his 'History of Animated Nature,' Johnson foretold of the work that it would prove "as interesting as a Persian tale," but the same great authority has also said, in the epitaph written for his tomb, that Goldsmith had the magic art of "adorning every subject that he touched." In the absence of such gifted hands wherewith to array natural history, there are many persons to whom its study offers small attraction,
