A Joyous Meeting
Kangaroos are very affectionate animals, and a touching story is told of a couple which lived together in captivity. They became the very best of friends, but when they were sent from Australia to Philadelphia, they had to travel by different ships. As soon as they were separated, they became miserable, moping in their cages, refusing to take food, and calling for each other all day long. "Jack," as the male was called, reached Philadelphia first, and for a whole week seemed to be constantly on the watch to see if "Flora," his mate, was coming. At last she arrived, and both animals at once became madly excited, leaping in their cages so wildly that at last they were put together, to prevent them from injuring themselves against the bars. Then they cuddled up against one another, licked each other with their tongues, and seemed so overjoyed to meet that the keeper promised that they should never be parted again.
Various Species of Kangaroos
Kangaroos generally live in droves, sometimes consisting of only a few animals, sometimes of as many as a hundred and fifty, or even more. But a "boomer" often lives during the greater part of the year quite alone, like a "rogue" elephant.
There are at least twenty-three different kinds of kangaroos, the smaller ones being generally known as wallabies. And these are again divided into large wallabies and small wallabies.
The large wallabies are also called brush-kangaroos because they live in the thick brushy jungle, called the bush, which occupies so large a part of the Australian continent. The biggest of them is really quite a large animal, for when fully grown it is six feet long, from the tip of the muzzle to the end of the tail. Some of the small wallabies, however, are very small, several of them being no bigger than rabbits.
Then there are some of these animals which spend most of their life in the trees and are called tree-kangaroos. Four of these creatures that lived for some time in the London Zoo looked very odd as they sat on the branches with their long tails hanging down behind them. But even when they were on the floor of their cage one could not possibly mistake them for ground-kangaroos, for their front limbs were almost as long as their hind ones.
The best known of these animals is found in Queensland. It spends the day in sleep, only coming out from its retreat among the foliage when darkness has set in, and it lives in the very thickest part of the bush, which is hardly ever visited even by the natives. It does not seem to be a very good climber, for it is rather slow in its movements, and appears to be a little afraid of falling; for it clings so tightly to the branch on which it is resting that it is difficult to force it to loose its hold.
The natives generally catch this curious kangaroo by climbing the tree in which it is sleeping, jerking it from its perch by a violent pull at its tail, and throwing it to the ground to be killed by the dogs below. But if it reaches the ground unhurt it makes off with great speed, hopping along with flying leaps like all the other members of the family.
Kangaroo-Rats