Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1894-06-21

/ S~1nc. wing W tbc GA
treme smallness Of the upper parts
the large muscular hindquerters af
ford the proper target, for bal
placed there il sure to stop the
game, even il not Immediately ia.
tai.
Often baby kangaroo will escape
from the pouch Of the dead mother,
and it is always in order to give
chase to such. For they make. il
they live through the first week OF
two of captivity, very docile and en-
tertaining pets. One, which | had
for short while, fed from an ordi.
nsrF bottle, soon learned to drink
milk from q pan, aud in few weeks
was . favorite playfellow Of two pup
pies with whom he slept. Being
an excellent swimmer he was easily
taught to fetch anything from the
water, and in many ways exhibited
no mean degree of intelligence.
One day, on, the hot plains of
Queensland, party of us surprised
a pack of perhaps dozen kanga-
roos feeding in the open. Having
selected a big 7-footer, an sold
man." as the natives call them, by
skillful management, which the
professional hunters well under
stood, we got him off on a track by
himself. 1t at once became appa-
rent that neither dogs nor horses
had any chance whatever of overta-
king him for the first few miles, and
that it was simply to be case of
endurance and long wind.
When the day comes that the kan
garoo shall have been sufficiently
tanned to make it possible to have
kangaroo races on our tracks, the
mile record will be put where no
etrse or bicyclist can ever hope to
Nohch it. Only the ostrich, of all
MI MI e animal world, is possibly swift
ly | firmly believe that on a sin
'so9 mile stretch along a railroad
ha4ck, if it were so arranged that
f kangaroo could not leave the
fck, a locomotive would have to
hsiderably exceed the rate of a
/ lie minute to overtake the ami
Ii.
ri The expression "enough to make
81 horse laugh" applies excellently
a kangaroo at full speed, and he
DO has never seen one on the go
ee1fore must be veritable "sober
cries" if he does not lean back in
p saddle and have a hearty, roar
g laugh at the ludicrous sight.
he jump into the air is quite high,
ten six or eight feet, as it must
mt ,at to cover such immense dis
innces as are possible to them. Fif-
en- to 20 feet is an average jump,
1T 34-foot jump has been actu-
selly measured.
WI With the tell held on level with
ie ground, and the long, fiat first
{ ,ints of the hind legs held on the
wrme level, the effect is most pecu-
uiar. AS the creature jumps at a
surprisingly rapid rate, landing fair
on this sort of tripod, and bound
;;.pg away again, sometimes with the
lid of that maryelously muscular
Jail, the motion is indeed grotesque.
But, while it may at first seem ex-
tessively awkward, it is soon ap-
parent that it has a certain grace
Jul undulatory movement as a whole
and is of the sort that ''gets there"
just the same.
IL our chase that day could have
been confined to the open fields,
with nothing worse than an ocaslon-
al fence or ditch to jump, a rock or
q grass-covered water hole to dodge.
or here and there soft spot or a
hill to "wiud" both kangaroo and
horse, it would not have been 80
hard form of sport, nor would it
have been nearly so exciting as it
was. But our kangaroo made for
the first cover it saw, and however
dense the brush or ow-hanging the
branches of the trees. managed to
rush along nearly as fast as in the
open. Of course the leaps in such
place were not so long, perhaps
hardly ten feet each, but they were
more frequent, and the speed re-
mained remarkable.
One who has not ridden at high
speed through such places can hard
ly picture the intense nervous strain
resulting from dodging limb here