ly at all.
All the kangaroo's strength seems to have settled down into the hind
legs and the tail, leaving the other parts comparatively weak, and the
head superlatively useless, except as an attachment for the mouth. One
would imagine that in the period which has elapsed since the Creation
the feeblest-minded of animals would have had time to arrive at some
final choice in the matter of coat-colour; but the kangaroo hasn't. He
never makes up his mind about anything; he begins life in a pale-grey
colour; in a year or two he changes his mind and turns very dark--darker
than either his father or his mother. The originality pleases him for a
little while, and then he gets doubtful of his choice, and makes a
wretched compromise--the kangaroo is compromise all over--settling down
for the rest of his life to a tint midway between the light and the
dark. If he lived a little longer he would probably experiment in blue.
As it is, he sometimes makes an attempt in pink--with powder. Only the
male kangaroo uses this cosmetic, and where he finds it and how he keeps
it is a mystery; he doesn't put it on his face--he devotes it entirely
to the complexion of his chest and stomach.

[Illustration: WRESTLING PRACTICE.]

Australians call a full-grown male kangaroo a "boomer": why, I don't
know. I could understand the application of the term in this country,
where such a thing as a boom in boxing kangaroos has been heard of,
and--this some while ago--a "white kangaroo" boom. The boxing kangaroo
has made a very loud boom indeed, and has done something to earn the
title of "boomer." Here, at the Zoo, however, there would seem to be
little ambition among the kangaroos to distinguish themselves as boxing
boomers; but there is a very frequent attitude suggestive of wrestling
practice--perhaps because these would-be boomers have muddled things,
and are thinking of the wrestling lion. Personally, I am not anxious
either to box or to wrestle with a kangaroo; for the beast has a plaguey
unpleasant hind foot, armed with a claw like a marline-spike, and a most
respectable ability to kick a hole in a stranger with it. It is a kind
of weapon that ordinary boxing and wrestling systems don't allow for,
and not at all an amusing sort of thing to have lashing about among
one's internal machinery. I don't wish to attribute any unsportsmanlike
proceedings to the kangaroo now before the public, but to point out that
the indiscriminate election of kangaroos