1896. E. Meston, `Sydney Bulletin,' April 18:
"The origin of the word `kangaroo' was published by me six years ago. Captain Cook got it from the Endeavor River blacks, who pronounce it to-day exactly as it is spelled in the great navigator's journal, but they use it now only for the big toe. Either the blacks in Cook's time called the kangaroo `big toe' for a nick-name, as the American Indians speak of the `big horn,' or the man who asked the name of the animal was holding it by the hind foot, and got the name of the long toe, the black believing that was the part to which the question referred."
1896. Rev. J. Mathew, Private Letter, Aug. 31:
"Most names of animals in the Australian dialects refer to their appearance, and the usual synthesis is noun + adjective; the word may be worn down at either end, and the meaning lost to the native mind.
"A number of the distinct names for <i>kangaroo</i> show a relation to words meaning respectively <i>nose, leg, big</i>, <i>long</i>, either with noun and adjective to combination or one or other omitted.
"The word <i>kangaroo</i> is probably analysable into <i>ka</i> or <i>kang</i>, <i>nose</i> (or <i>head</i>), and <i>goora</i>, <i>long</i>, both words or local equivalents being widely current."
(2) Wild young cattle (a special use)—
1827. P. Cunningham, `Two Years in New South Wales,' vol. i. p. 290:
"A stockyard under six feet high will be leaped by some of these kangaroos (as we term them) with the most perfect ease, and it requires to be as stout as it is high to resist their rushes against it."
(3) Used playfully, and as a nickname for persons and things Australian. An Australian boy at an English school is frequently called "Kangaroo." It is a Stock Exchange nickname for shares in Western Australian gold-mining companies.