Page:Natural History (1848).djvu/278

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268
MARSUPIATA.—MACROPODID.


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