The kangaroo is always taken as a type of Australian animal life. When
an Australian cricket team succeeds in vanquishing in a Test Match an
English one (which happens now and again), the comic papers may be
always expected to print a picture of a lion looking sad and sorry, and
a kangaroo proudly elate. The kangaroo, like practically all Australian
animals, is a marsupial, carrying its young about in a pouch after their
birth until they reach maturity. The kangaroo's forelegs are very small;
its hindlegs and its tail are immensely powerful, and these it uses for
progression, rushing with huge hops over the country. There are very
many animals which may be grouped as kangaroos, from the tiny kangaroo
rat, about the size of an English water-rat, to the huge red kangaroo,
which is over six feet high and about the weight of a sucking calf. The
kangaroo is harmless and inoffensive as a rule, but it can inflict a
dangerous kick with its hindlegs, and when pursued by dogs or men and
cornered, the "old man" kangaroo will sometimes fight for its life. Its
method is to take a stand in a water-hole or with its back to a tree,
standing on its hindlegs and balanced on its tail. When a dog approaches
it is seized in the kangaroo's forearms and held under water or torn to
pieces. Occasionally men's lives have been lost through approaching
incautiously an old man kangaroo.

The kangaroo's method of self-defence has been turned to amusing account
by circus-proprietors. The "boxing kangaroo" was at one time quite a
common feature at circuses and music-halls. A tame kangaroo would have
its forefeet fitted with boxing-gloves. Then when lightly punched by its
trainer, it would, quite naturally, imitate the movements of the boxer,
fending off blows and hitting out with its forelegs. One boxing kangaroo
I had a bout with was quite a clever pugilist. It was very difficult to
hit the animal, and its return blows were hard and well directed.

The different sorts of kangaroo you may like to know. There is the
kangaroo rat, very small; the "flying kangaroo," a rare animal of the
squirrel species, but marsupial, which lives in trees; the wallaby, the
wallaroo, the paddy-melon (medium varieties of kangaroo); the grey and
the red kangaroo, the last the biggest and finest of the species.

The kangaroo, as I have said, is not of much use for meat. Its flesh is
very dark and rank, something like that of a horse. However, chopped up
into a fine saus