ad had fair play I have very
little doubt but that he would then have beat us; but he had taken along
a tongue of land which ran into the sea, so that, on being pressed, he
was forced to try to swim across the arm of the sea, which, at the place
where he took the water, cannot have been less than two miles broad; in
spite of a fresh breeze and a head sea against him, he got fully
half-way over, but he could not make head against the waves any further,
and was obliged to turn back, when, being quite exhausted, he was soon
killed.

"The distance he ran, taking in the different bends in the line, cannot
have been less than eighteen miles, and he certainly swam more than two.
I can give no idea of the length of time it took him to run this
distance, but it took us something more than two hours; and it was
evident, from the way in which the hounds were running, that he was a
long way before us; and it was also plain that he was still fresh, as,
quite at the end of the run, he went over the top of a very high hill,
which a tired kangaroo never will attempt to do, as dogs gain so much on
them in going up hill. His hind quarters weighed within a pound or two
of seventy pounds, which is large for the Van Diemen's Land kangaroo,
though I have seen larger.

"We did not measure the length of the hop of this kangaroo; but on
another occasion, when the 'boomer' had taken along the beach, and left
his prints in the sand, the length of each jump was found to be just
fifteen feet, and as regular as if they had been stepped by a sergeant.
When a 'boomer' is pressed, he is very apt to take the water, and then
it requires several good dogs to kill him, for he stands waiting for
them, and as soon as they swim up to the attack, he takes hold of them
with his fore feet, and holds them under water. The buck is altogether
very bold, and will generally make a stout resistance; for if he cannot
get to the water, he will place his back against a tree, so that he
cannot be attacked from behind, and then the best dog will find in him a
formidable antagonist.

"The doe, on the contrary, is a very timid creature, and I have even
seen one die of fear. It was in a place where we wished to preserve
them, and as soon as we found that we were running a doe we stopped the
hounds, just at the moment they were running into her. She had not
received the slightest injury, but she lay down and died in about ten
minutes. When a doe is beat she generally makes