Kangaroo Cooke.
Major-General Henry Frederick Cooke, C.B. and K.C.H., commonly called Kang-Cooke, was a captain in the Coldstream Guards, and aide-de-camp to the Duke of York. He was called the kangaroo by his intimate associates. It is said that this arose from his once having let loose a cageful of these animals at Pidcock's Menagerie, or from his answer to the Duke of York, who, inquiring how he fared in the Peninsula, replied that he "could get nothing to eat but kangaroo."[151] Moore, in his Diary,[152] December 13, 1820, records that he dined with him and others at Lord Granard's. Cooke told of Admiral Cotton once (at Lisbon, I think) saying during dinner, "Make signals for the Kangaroo to get under way;" and Cooke, who had just been expressing his anxiety to leave Lisbon, thought the speech alluded to his nickname, and considered it an extraordinary liberty for one who knew so little of him as Admiral Cotton to take. He found out afterwards, however, that his namesake was a sloop-of-war.
THE TIGER-WOLF.
(Thylacinus cynocephalus.)
The great order, or rather division, of mammalia, the Marsupialia,[153] is furnished with a pouch, into which the young are received and nourished at a very early period of their existence. The first species of the group, known to voyagers and naturalists, was the celebrated opossum of North America, whose instinctive care to defend itself from danger causes it to feign the appearance of death. As the great continent of Australia became known, it was found that the great mass of its mammalia, from the gigantic kangaroo to the pigmy, mouse-like potoroo, belonged to this singular order. The order contains a most anomalous set of animals, some being exclusively carnivorous, some chiefly subsisting on insects, while others browse on grass; and many live on fruits and leaves, which they climb trees to procure; a smaller portion subsisting on roots, for which they burrow in the ground. The gentle and deer-faced kangaroo belongs to this order; the curious bandicoots, the tree-frequenting phalangers and petauri, the savage "native devil,"[154] and the voracious subject of this notice.
The "tiger-wolf" is a native of Van Diemen's Land, and is strictly confined to that island. It was first described in the ninth volume of the "Linnean Transactions," under the name of Didelphis cynocephalus, or "dog-headed opossum," the English name being an exact translation of its Latin one. Its non-prehensile tail, peculiar feet, and different arrangement of teeth, pointed out to naturalists that it entered into a genus distinct from the American opossums; and to this genus the name of Thylacinus[155] has been applied; its specific name cynocephalus being still retained in conformity with zoological nomenclature, although M. Temminck, the founder of the genus, honoured the species with the name of its first describer, and called it Thylacinus Harrisii.
Mr Gould has given a short account of this quadruped in his great work, "The Mammals of Australia," accompanied with two plates, one showing the head of the male, of the natural size, in such a point of view as to exhibit the applicability of one of the names applied to it by the colonists, that of "zebra-wolf." He justly remarks that it must be regarded as by far the most formidable of all the marsupial animals, as it certainly is the most savage indigenous quadruped belonging to the Australian continent. Although it is too feeble to make a successful attack on man, it commits great havoc among the smaller quadrupeds of the country; and to the settler it is a great object of dread, as his poultry and other domestic animals are never safe from its attacks. His sheep are, especially, an object of the colonist's anxious care, as he can house his poultry, and thus secure them from the prowler; but his flocks, wandering about over the country, are liable to be attacked at night by the tiger-wolf, whose habits are strictly nocturnal. Mr Gunn has seen some so large and powerful that a number of dogs would not face one of them. It has become an object with the settler to destroy every specimen he can fall in with, so that it is much rarer than it was at the time Mr Harris, its first describer, wrote its history, at least in the cultivated districts. Much, however, of Van Diemen's Land is still in a state of nature, and as large tracts of forest-land remain yet uncleared, there is abundance of covert for it still in the more remote parts of the colony, and it is even now often seen at Woolnoth and among the Hampshire hills. In such places it feeds on the smaller species of kangaroos and other marsupials,—bandicoots, and kangaroo-rats, while even the prickle-covered echidna—a much more formidable mouthful than any hedgehog—supplies the tiger-wolf with a portion of its sustenance. The specimen described by Mr Harris was caught in a trap baited with the flesh of the kangaroo. When opened, the remains of a half-digested echidna[156] were found in its stomach.
The tiger-wolf has a certain amount of daintiness in its appetite when in a state of nature. From the observations of Mr Gunn it would seem that nothing will induce it to prey on the wombat,[157] a fat, sluggish, marsupial quadruped, abundant in the districts which it frequents, and whose flesh would seem to be very edible, seeing that it lives on fruits and roots. No sooner, however, was the sheep introduced than the tiger-wolf began to attack the flocks, and has ever since shown a most unmistakable appetite for mutton, preferring the flesh of that most useful and easily-mastered quadruped to that of any kangaroo however venison-like, or bandicoot however savoury. The colonists of Van Diemen's land have applied various names to this animal, according as its resemblance to other ferocious quadrupeds of different climates struck their fancy. The names of "tiger," "hyena," and "zebra-wolf," are partly acquired from its ferocity, somewhat corresponding with that of these well-known carnivorous denizens of other lands, and partly from the black bands which commence behind the shoulders, and which extend in length on the haunches, and resemble in some faint measure those on the barred tyrant of the Indian jungles, and the other somewhat similarly ornamented mammalia implied in the names. These bars are well relieved by the general grayish-brown colour of the fur, which is somewhat woolly in its texture, from each of the hairs of which it is composed being waved.
The specimens in the Zoological Gardens are very shy and restless; when alarmed they dash and leap about their dens and utter a short guttural cry somewhat resembling a bark. This shyness is partly to be attributed to their imperfect vision by day, and partly to their resemblance in character to the wolf, whose treachery and suspicious manners in confinement must have struck every one who has gazed on this "gaunt savage" in his den in the Regent's Park. The specimens exhibited are the first living members of the species first brought to Europe. The male was taken in November 1849, and the female at an earlier period in the same year, on the upper part of St Patrick's River, about thirty miles north-east of Launceston. After being gradually accustomed to confinement by Mr Gunn, they were shipped for this country, and reached the Gardens in the spring of 1850. It is very seldom, indeed, that they are caught alive; and when so caught they are generally at once killed, so that it was with some difficulty and by offering a considerable pecuniary inducement to the shepherds, that they were at last secured for the Zoological Society.[158] In their den they show great activity, and can bound upwards nearly to the roof of the place where they are confined.—A. White, from "Excelsior."
SQUIRREL: ARCTIC LEMMING.
The one with its long plume-like tail, organised for a life among trees, the other with its home in the arctic regions, belong to an order not generally distinguished for intelligence, although, the beaver, once reputed a miracle of mind, belongs to it. The glirine or rodent animals are generally of small or moderate size, though some, like the water-loving capybara, are of considerable dimensions.
The squirrel is a fine subject for a painter. There is a picture by Sir Edwin Landseer, of a squirrel and bullfinch. On an engraving of it, published in 1865, is inscribed "a pair of nut-crackers,"—a happy title, and very apposite.
Jekyll saw in Colman's chambers a squirrel in the usual round cage. "Ah! poor devil," said Jekyll, "he's going the home circuit."[159]
If you come upon a squirrel on the ground, he is not long in getting to the topmost branch of the highest tree, so perfectly is he adapted for "rising" at a "bar"!