to make an indecisive selection
would be just in accord with his character. He fancied a sheep's head,
rather, but hadn't enough decision of character to take a sheep's head
as it was and be thankful for it. He preferred a donkey's ears to the
sheep's, so had them substituted. Even then, some mistrust of the
boldness of the design intimidated him, and he cautiously compromised by
having them small. The only part of a kangaroo or wallaby that has the
least independence about it is the tail; and the wallabies are so proud
of the individuality, that they sit with their tails extended before
them all day: and the colonist acknowledges the merit of the kangaroo's
tail by making soup of it. Let us grant the kangaroo his tail, since it
is the only thing that is unmistakably his own. Abashed at his own
temerity in venturing to take an independent tail, all the kangaroo's
other selections became hopelessly demoralized. He took a grasshopper's
hind legs, and plagiarized a rat's fore-paws. Obviously, he got the
design of his coat partly from the rabbit and partly from the rat, and
the idea of his pouch from the bookmaker.

[Illustration: THE WICKED DINGO DOG; OR,]

[Illustration: INNOCENCE]

Now, it is a noticeable thing, illustrative of the mental stagnation of
the kangaroo, that, having adopted the crude idea of the bookmaker's or
'bus-conductor's pouch, he--or, rather, she--through all the
generations, has never developed an improvement on that pouch, either by
evolution, selection, or natural adaptation. Even in these days of
improvement, the kangaroo's pouch has no separate compartment for
silver. Of course it is mainly used to carry the family in, but in any
really intelligent and enterprising class of animals that pouch would
long ago have improved and developed, through the countless ages, into a
convenient perambulator, with rubber tires and a leather hood. As it is,
the kangaroo has not so much as added a patent clasp.

[Illustration: PRESERVED.]

Still, in its merely primitive form, the pouch is found useful by the
small kangaroo. It is an ever-ready refuge from the prowling dingo dog,
and any little kangaroo who breaks a window has always a capital
hiding-place handy. Indeed, the young kangaroo would fare ill without
this retreat, because any other cradle the mother, being a kangaroo,
would probably forget all about, and lose. It is only because the pouch
hangs under her very nose that she remembers she has a fami