The house stood on an eminence above the river, and one day the kangaroo picked up the baby out of its cradle, and, with the child in his arms, went hopping down the bank. His intentions were good, no doubt, for he permitted himself to be overtaken and deprived of his charge, but the poor mother had in the meanwhile received such a fright that the would-be nursemaid was "given warning" on the spot.
At the time of the first settling of the colony English-bred greyhounds were used for hunting the kangaroo and emu, and I have been told that in those days the value of a really good brace of dogs was fifty pounds. Since then cross-breeds between mastiff and greyhound, or better still between fox-hound and Scottish deer-hound, have been introduced, and are known under the name of kangaroo dogs. It was long before sheep were sufficiently plentiful to admit of being freely eaten, and those persons who were so fortunate as to possess good dogs lived as much as possible on kangaroo venison, which still retains an honoured place at all tables even though the sauce of necessity is wanting.
The usual price of the meat whilst in season is twopence-halfpenny the pound, and the hind quarters and tail alone are cooked, the other parts of the animal falling to the share of the dogs. Being very dry meat it requires as much basting as a hare, and is generally eaten with the accompaniment of fat pork. A larded loin of kangaroo is a real dainty, but the larding was our own idea, and I fancied that our larding-needle was unique in the colony. The tail makes a splendid soup which is very nutritious, and also capital stews and pasties; in fact it
