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
lee. 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
