Mr. Barnard informed me that his dogs were one day chasing an old kangaroo when an ox-driver happened to be passing with his waggon. At the sight of the animal the man ran behind his waggon to avoid the kangaroo, which was advancing toward him, but when it came near the ox-driver it made a jump sideways, seized him, and carried him about twelve paces, until the dogs compelled the powerful animal to let go of its victim.
A stalwart Highland shepherd was on his way home one evening with his dog, when suddenly he discovered a large object in front of him. Having lately come to Australia he had scarcely seen one of these animals before, and being very superstitious, he thought it was the devil himself. Meanwhile his dog attacked the monster, but instead of taking flight it assumed the form of a great kangaroo, came up to the shepherd, put its large arms around him, and hopped away with him. The dog pursued the bold robber until the latter let go of its victim, after having carried him ten to twelve paces.
On another occasion, when Mr. Barnard was out riding with some of his friends, he met an “old man kangaroo.” One of the company galloped after it and struck it several times with his whip, so as to compel it to sit down and thus be more easily subdued; but suddenly the kangaroo turned, clasped its arms round the neck of the horse, so that it was hanging with its breast against the head of the horse. In this position the kangaroo made desperate efforts to rip the horse’s belly open with its large claw, while the horse, on the other hand, leapt about frantically to get rid of its unwelcome embraces. That it was difficult for the rider to keep his place in the saddle it is not necessary to state. The scene was so comical that his companions were hardly able to give him the necessary assistance as soon as they ought to have done.
When a kangaroo with a big young one in its pouch is pursued, it will throw it out of the pouch in order to make its escape easier. This done, the mother runs in a zigzag direction, probably to draw the attention of the pursuer away from the young, which lies perfectly still where it is dropped. A kangaroo never carries different broods in its pouch; but a well-grown one may often be seen following its mother while she is carrying a little one in her pouch.
I am able to relate, as a most remarkable fact, that a wallaroo, a peculiar kind of kangaroo (Macropus robustus), which was kept tame at a station, showed a marked fondness for animal food, particularly for boiled salt beef. A dove had been its companion, and these two animals were the best of friends for half a year, when the wallaroo one day killed its companion and partly ate it. This wallaroo had been captured while young, and had been brought up on milk, bread, and fresh grass. As an analogous circumstance I may mention that rabbits which have been brought up together with chickens have killed the latter and eaten some of their flesh.
I brought many interesting things from my sojourn at Coomooboolaroo, among others a fine collection of Buprestidæ. The strange-looking lizard at the beginning of this chapter, Nephrurus asper, and the Bolboceras rhinoceros, given on a separate plate, are also from this locality. In the evenings a number of insects usually came flying into the house, attracted by the light, and in this manner I caught this rare beetle and many other specimens. On the ground near the station there were large flocks of cockatoos. With their powerful beaks they dug up roots of a grass (Panicum semialatum) of which they are very fond. It interested me to observe that among the many kinds of grass, so similar in appearance that a superficial observer would take them to be identical, the cockatoos never failed to find at once the one they wanted. One day the rare hawk variety Astur radiatus was shot near the station while it was consuming a white cockatoo it had caught. The nest, found close by in the top of a high Moreton Bay ash, resembled the nests of other hawks, and contained two eggs, of a dirty white colour, with a few irregular light brown marks (length 2⁵⁄₁₆ inches, breadth 1¹⁵⁄₁₆ inch).
One of my chief occupations during these days was the study of the spiny ant-eaters’ mode of propagation. One of my young friends at the station and a black man had found a spiny ant-eater (Echidna), from whose pouch they took an egg which, according to their description, was not quite half the size of a hen’s egg, and the shell of which was like leather and resembled that of an “iguana” egg. This egg, however, had been destroyed, and so I resolved to do all in my power to investigate the matter, and had a large number of ant-eaters examined. My investigations extended from the beginning of February to the middle of March, and I made the observation that the ovaries were constantly growing in size during this time. As I had to leave Australia at the end of March, I unfortunately was unable to continue my observations to the end of the development, but still I came to the conclusion that the reports I had received from the blacks corresponded with the facts, as has since been demonstrated in other quarters. According to the statements of the blacks, the ant-eaters were to have young in April or May. The nearly mature eggs, lying in the ovaries and taken from a full-grown specimen, in the beginning of March measured about ⅑ of an inch[[21]] in diameter. The mammæ of the same individual were large and swollen, and contained much milk. The ovaries are very much like those of birds in appearance, but are distinguished from the latter by the fact that the right and left ovary are of the same size, while in birds only one ovary is usually developed.
[21]. Prof. G. A. Guldberg: Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Eierstockeier bei Echidna. Jena, 1885.
NATIVES FROM THE VICINITY OF ROCKHAMPTON.