"Kangaroo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our Goshoots are manifestly descended from the self-same gorilla, or kangaroo, or Norway rat, which-ever animal—Adam the Darwinians trace ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... be in a full sense a quadruped, while not yet a biped, and a variation in the length of its limbs was almost sure to take place. This is an ordinary result when animals cease to walk on all fours. In the leaping kangaroo and jerboa a shortening of the arms and lengthening of the legs appear. Here the arms are relieved from duty and a double duty is laid on the legs, with the consequence stated. In the ancient dinosaurian reptiles, upright walkers, ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... what St. Francis tried to preach: that beasts and birds and fishes were his "little brothers." Or rather, perhaps, more strictly, he felt them to be his great brothers and his fathers, for the attitude of the Australian towards the kangaroo, the North American towards the grizzly bear, is one of affection tempered by deep religious awe. The beast dances look back to that early phase of civilization which survives in crystallized form in what we call totemism. ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... glow holds one sees the thistle-down flights and pouncings after prey, and on into the dark hears their soft pus-ssh! clearing out of the trail ahead. Maybe the pinpoint shriek of field mouse or kangaroo rat that pricks the wakeful pauses of the night is extorted by these mellow-voiced plunderers, though it is just as like to be the work of the red fox on ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... already been peopled! The majestic rusa, captured in the sultry forests of Bengal, and the elegant gazelle, which has once bounded over the parching deserts of Barbary, have become intimate and make their couch with the white reindeer, brought from the icy wastes of Lapland. The misshapen but harmless kangaroo of New Holland is a fellow-lodger with the ferocious gnu of Southern Africa; and the patient llama, who has left the snowy sides and precipitous defiles of the Andes, contemplates without terror its formidable neighbours, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... seize it; when at that instant it struck out with its hinder claws, one of which tore a large rent in the Irishman's trousers, giving him at the same time a severe scratch, which, had he not sprung back, might have been serious. In a moment his knife was in his hand, and before the kangaroo could repeat the blow he had plunged it into ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... short spring streams beavers are still busy, as is shown by the cotton-wood and willow timber they have cut and peeled, found in all the river drift-heaps. In the most barren cliffs and gulches there dwell a multitude of lesser animals, well-dressed, clear-eyed, happy little beasts—wood-rats, kangaroo-rats, gophers, wood-mice, skunks, rabbits, bob cats, and many others, gathering food, or dozing in their sun-warmed dens. Lizards, too, of every kind and color are here enjoying life on the hot cliffs, and making ...
— The Grand Canon of the Colorado • John Muir
... negress, with the characteristic grass-rope basket containing dates. North America is an Indian, but the civilization of the land is indicated by an anchor, beehive and cog-wheel. Australia is a gin, with a waddy, boomerang and kangaroo. South America sits on a cotton-bale, has a condor by her side, and at her feet are tropical fruits—pineapples, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... philosophies, as in that of the Scandinavians, to find that the sun or moon has been a man or woman. In Australian fable the moon was a man, the sun a woman of indifferent character, who appears at dawn in a coat of red kangaroo skins, the present of an admirer. In an old Mexican text the moon was a man, across whose face a god threw a rabbit, thus making the marks in the ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... where changes come over them with no conceivable cause, except the climate. The tragic woman becomes contented and the comic man becomes responsible, solely as the result of a sea voyage and the first sight of a kangaroo. ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... paws in attempts to express the water, sometimes like a cat, and at others, like a squirrel. It sat up, like the latter, on its hind legs, and ate bread in the manner of a squirrel. In this position it gave some idea of the kangaroo. Its color was a black body, brownish on the cheeks and under the body. The eye small and not very brilliant. Its cry is not unlike that of a young child. The owner said, it would eat rice and fish. It was ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... the old man were going out a long trip over the mountain, and down the Kangaroo Valley Road that's all cut out of the side of the 'ill. And after they's gone a mile or two, Henery sees a track in the road—the track of the biggest car he ever seen or 'eard of. An' the more he looks at it, the more he reckons he must ketch that car and see what she's made ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... afternoon, for never have they seen such fun, never since the great days before the War when the circus with the boxing kangaroo and the educated porks came ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... is all this to the longing of the Canadian for the nightly howl of the kangaroo and the song of the wombat flitting among the blue-gums in his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... the F. M. S. Railways which traverses the Sultanate of Johore runs through the greatest tiger country in all Asia. The tiger is to Johore what the elephant is to Siam and the kangaroo to Australia—a sort of national trademark. Even the postage stamps bear an engraving of the striped monarch of the jungle. There is no place in the world, so far as I am aware, save only a zoo, of course, where one can get a shot at a tiger ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... here a strange little cousin of the kangaroo, a near relative of the coenolestes. It turned out to be new to science. To find a new genus of mammalian quadrupeds was an event which delighted Mr. Heller far more than shooting ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... chair, and with much chuckling, recalled the "kangaroo court" the cowboys used to hold at night in camp. These impromptu courts were often all the fun the cowboys had during the long weeks of hunting stock ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... little second-term gubernatorial boom is one of them, and canting hypocrisy by sensation-seeking preachers is another. Can the church and state find no grander work than camping on the trail of a couple of pugilists? Are Gentleman Jim and Kangaroo Bob the upper and nether millstones between which humanity is being ground? Are these the only obstacles to the inauguration of the Golden Age—that era of Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men? The world is honey- combed with crime. Brother Seasholes says there are 800 fallen women in ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... rattlesnake, about four feet long, and of good circumference, twisted up into a most peculiar position. Investigation found that, notwithstanding the coolness of the day, he was foraging for game, and was engaged in swallowing a good-sized kangaroo rat. The tail of the rat protruded several inches from his mouth. The snake glared at us, but made no effort to escape or fight. He seemed dazed, probably half choked by his efforts to swallow the rat. We straightened him out on the ground ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... like. [Footnote: Not the rams. There were a few others kept for the purpose. I stayed a few days with them, when I went out myself, at the end of the year.] The worst part serves for the dogs, of which we have three—a sheep dog, and two kangaroo dogs. [Footnote: They had a horse when I visited them, but not, I conclude, at the time when this letter was written.] The latter are good, and keep off the native curs at night. The sheep dog was the only one the former owner had last year, ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... spectacle was Pere Rousselet. He actually clapped his hands together behind his back, spread his legs apart in the attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, while his coat-skirts almost touched the ground, giving him the look of a kangaroo resting his paws under his tail. From his large cockatoo mouth escaped provoking hisses, which encouraged the assassins in their crime as much as did ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the excess of his joy, the Canadian, if he had not talked so much, would have killed them all. But he contented himself with a single dozen of these interesting marsupians. These animals were small. They were a species of those "kangaroo rabbits" that live habitually in the hollows of trees, and whose speed is extreme; but they are moderately fat, and furnish, at least, estimable food. We were very satisfied with the results of the hunt. Happy Ned proposed to return ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... Of early Dutch To this great feast of feasts, I'll drink ten drops Of Holland's schnapps," Spoke out the King of Beasts. "That must taste fine," Said the Porcupine, "Did you see him smack his lip?" "I'd smack mine, too," Cried the Kangaroo, "If I didn't ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... hills, so that one might journey afield, and then the "touring-car," and then the racing machine, and now we have automobile omnibuses, and even automobile ambulances to pick up any frightened persons possessed of less agility than a kangaroo or a jack-rabbit might inadvertently have been bowled over. These disasters are seldom the automobilist's fault, and, happily, they are becoming fewer and fewer; but the indecision that overcame the passer-by, in the early days of the bicycle, still exists with ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... rock at the entrance to the port of Sydney a kangaroo is sculptured. In Easter Island (Rapa-Nui) La Perouse discovered a number of coarsely executed bust statues (Fig. 4). There are altogether some four hundred of them, forming groups in different parts of ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... the muffled whining changed suddenly to a series of tenor shrieks, and the india-rubber form of Sammy bounded into the room like an excited kangaroo. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... had intended no discourtesy to Sir Thomas Lipton by declining to attend the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club dinner; Major Delmar had failed to beat Lou Dillon's time, on the same track; the National Dressmakers' Association had declared that the kangaroo walk and Gibson shoulders would shortly be eschewed by all really fashionable women; and these matters were more interesting, of course, but certainly no cause for excitement. Well, I reflected, no news was good news ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... stop short of domestication. They might be transplanted to other continents and thereby given a larger field for variation as well as a chance to exhibit their features in a wider field. Among the pouched mammals, especially in the species of kangaroo, there are forms which commend themselves as very fair subjects for taming. They are of considerable size, their flesh is palatable, and their hides useful for leather; they breed rapidly, live on a poor ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... nevertheless was toward the trench: and on walked deliberately the fluctuating rope, the staff now travelling the gorsey ground, now bounding like a kangaroo yards high, to come down once ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... and Times would have a throbbing story told by some traveler who had shot big game in India, or penetrated the frozen north, or visited the interior of Tibet, or observed the habits of the kangaroo in Australia. ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... their young after their birth; it has been surmised that at one time the major part of that continent was under water, and that this pouch was supplied to them for the safety of their young; nor is this conjecture without strong grounds; if only the kangaroo and opossum tribes, which are animals peculiarly indigenous to that continent, were supplied with this peculiar formation, the conjecture would fall to the ground, as it might fairly be said that this property ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... kangaroo made a thirty-foot leap. "Lawd Gawd, Cap'n, does you kill dem debbils wid clubs? I craves a cannon an' forty miles' range, or else one o' them airplane ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... administrative duties. It was all a new experience to me. I travelled hundreds of miles. The residents in the outlying districts offered me every hospitality. Horses, of course, were always available. Kangaroo and wallaby hunts, shooting and fishing parties, were arranged to fill up the time in spare days. The wild turkey is indeed a wary bird; he wants a lot of stalking, especially in the open salt bush plains. An ox or cow was often made use of to approach this knowing bird. It ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... flunkeyism in it which too often marks our own satirists. Artemus Ward's reports of his own conversations with the mighty of the earth were made highly ludicrous by the homely want of self-consciousness, displayed by the owner of the Kangaroo, that "amoosin' little cuss," and of the "two moral B'ars." But it is vain to attempt to analyze the fun of Artemus Ward. Why did he make some people laugh till they cried, while others were all untouched? His secret probably was almost entirely one of manner, a trick of almost ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... its principal mountains being only a series of ramparts marking off the lower coast lands from the interior plateau. Again, its native quadrupeds are entirely different from those of other continents, being almost all, whether little or big, "marsupials," or "pouch-bearers," like the kangaroo. Its birds are mostly songless. Its flowers, for the most part, have no scent. Its trees are leaved vertically and cast no shade. Its indigenous inhabitants have made no progress toward civilisation. When Europeans first came to the country they ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... and K.C.H., commonly called Kang-Cooke, was a captain in the Coldstream Guards, and aide-de-camp to the Duke of York. He was called the kangaroo by his intimate associates. It is said that this arose from his once having let loose a cageful of these animals at Pidcock's Menagerie, or from his answer to the Duke of York, who, inquiring how he fared in the Peninsula, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... or observe. Massachusetts, also the city of Louisville, Ky., employed this system of voting so early as 1888. Next year ten States enacted similar laws. In 1890 four more followed, and in 1891 fourteen more. By 1898 thirty-nine States, all the members of the Union but six, had taken up "kangaroo voting," as its foes dubbed it. Of these six States five ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... from these footprints, the creatures seem to have been somewhat related to our frogs, but they generally had tails, and, though provided with four legs, were in the habit of walking on the hind ones alone like the kangaroo. A few of these tracks are shown in ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... unconventional. I didn't grasp what it was going to do. She's the girl that gets up early in the morning and rides bare-back—the horse, I mean, of course; don't be so silly. Over in New South Wales it didn't matter. I threw in the usual local colour—the eucalyptus- tree and the kangaroo—and let her ride. It is now that she is over here in London that I wish I had never thought of her. She gets up at five and wanders about the silent city. That means, of course, that I have to get up at five in order to record her impressions. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... a very windy morning, and when he opened the letter an inclosure, printed on much finer paper, was caught into the air and went down the wind. Triplet followed in kangaroo leaps, like a ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... he began the most wonderful Kangaroo hops that he could do. He covered about thirty feet in those five steps, and by swerving a little aside he got a good view of the Deer. He was now less than sixty-five yards away. He fired and missed. Now Guy had the right to walk up five steps. He also missed. Finally at thirty yards Sam sent ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... by simply taking note of their totems. These were emblems of the things which held the mind of the tribe, as admirable or terrible, with which it was proud to identify itself—the fox, for instance, or the bear, the kangaroo, or the eagle. To be worthy of such ideals men fought. Later, every little people, every knightly, family, every group of adventurers, adopted a device for its shield, a motto for its flag, a figure of some kind, human, or more often animal. Even the modern nations have not got ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... kind Kangaroo, Whose bonnet was always askew; So they asked her to wait While they put it on straight And fastened it firmly ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... kins. The phratries are named Dilbi and Kupathin; Dilbi is divided into two classes, Muri and Kubi; Kupathin into Kumbo and Ipai. The Dilbi totems, which may belong to either of the classes, are kangaroo, opossum and iguana; those of Kupathin are emu, bandicoot and black snake. Every member of the tribe has his own phratry, class and totem; these all ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... the one side richly wooded, and on the other, the west, planted with all acclimatisable varieties of Alpine plants and flowering shrubs. The chain of ponds at the bottom of the ravine forms one of the principal sources of the Adur. In an enclosure among the woods the kangaroo has been acclimatised; and beavers are ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... wish he would break his neck. And so can a kangaroo hop around, but you wouldn't pick a kangaroo to fight a bull buffalo. You'll find out the difference, if ever he tackles my bosun. And no fear my bosun won't get him. He'll get him, you see. And when they come together I'll take good care ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... Kangaroo," on hearing of the "Wrestling Lion.")—What is tamer than a tame lion? Why, of course, a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... "No, never, ye leather-jawed kangaroo, but I've no objections to do the drum on yer skull, with this for a drumstick!" He flourished his club as he spoke, and Bunco, bounding away with a laugh, led the party back on their track for a few paces, then, turning sharp ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... larger islands the small species of the Kangaroo, bearing the native name Wallaby (Halmaturus Billardierii), which, when mixed with other ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... first give briefly all the cases known to me of male quadrupeds differing in colour from the females. With Marsupials, as I am informed by Mr. Gould, the sexes rarely differ in this respect; but the great red kangaroo offers a striking exception, "delicate blue being the prevailing tint in those parts of the female which in the male are red." (19. Osphranter rufus, Gould, 'Mammals of Australia,' 1863, vol. ii. On the Didelphis, Desmarest, 'Mammalogie,' p. 256.) In the Didelphis opossum ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... largest publisher of books in the world today in terms of the number of copies it has sold and is currently selling. Over 400,000,000 copies have carried the symbol of "Gertrude," the little kangaroo which is the colophon of POCKET BOOKS, INC. This firm also publishes CARDINAL EDITIONS, a newer series of books of exceptional merit and value, priced at 35c ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... measures about nine feet in length, two-thirds of which are made of she-oak or casuarina, hard and heavy, and the remaining third of a soft and very light wood; one end has a small hollow to receive the knob of the throwing-stick, and to the other the leg-bone of a kangaroo six inches long, sharpened at each end, is secured in such a manner as to furnish a sharp point to the spear and a long barb besides. Another spear, occasionally used in fighting, has three or four heads of wood each of which is tipped and barbed ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... better die at once than be the recipient of all the inward curses that are hurled at you! The first act generally lasts an hour, and the people emerge from the stifling auditorium into the fresh air with a sigh of relief. The Germans make dashes of kangaroo leaps toward the casks of beer, and then rush for the tents where they get something to eat at the price ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... of the race that was run by a Boomer. Run in a single burst—only event of its kind— Started by Big God Nqong from Warrigaborrigarooma, Old Man Kangaroo first, Yellow-Dog Dingo behind. ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... bullocks, replacing fallen baggage, and in the many other toils and labours in which he manfully bears his share. Nothing less than the departure of one, and the death of another, can elicit a passing hint of their character and qualities. Mr Hodgson shot a kangaroo; Mr Roper brought in eight cockatoos; Mr Phillips found a flesh-coloured drupaceous fruit; Mr Calvert shot a native companion—not one of the aborigines, but a bird so called; and thus the book goes on, every thing put down ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Ted made a leap and landed safely upon Sultan's back, and gave him a slap with the loose end of his rein. The little horse gave a leap like a kangaroo, and dashed through the gateway of the corral and across the white prairie, running ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... loss, tax, waltz, potato, shoe, colony, piano, kangaroo, pulley, wharf, staff, fife, loaf, flagstaff, handkerchief, Mr., child, ox, beaux, cherubim, mesdames, termini, genus, genius, bagnio, theory, galley, muff, mystery, colloquy, son-in-law, man-of-war, spoonful, maid-servant, Frenchman, German, man-servant, Dr. Smith, Messrs. Brown and Smith, x, 1/2, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... the rag off the bush. He described the Godless Atheists that held half the world in thrall. He rehearsed again the butchery of the kulaks and the kangaroo courts of Cuba. He showed the Mongol tanks rumbling into Budapest and the pinched-face terror of the East German refugees; the "human sea" charges in Korea and the flight ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds
... quadruped, something like a bird, something like a mouse, something like a kangaroo, which troubles us sometimes of a summer's evening, by flying about the room and entangling itself ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... with a howl of rage Diggs sprang forward and bounced down the pike like a hungry kangaroo on its way to ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... likable, though a queer fellow in some ways, said his best friends—the ones who called him "Petro." When the ship played that she was a hobby-horse or a crab (if that is the creature which shares with elderly Germans a specialty for walking from side to side), also a kangaroo, and occasionally a boomerang, Peter ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... Captain Newman distinguished himself by a most gallant action which he fought off the coast of Ireland. He was then in command of the Mermaid, 32-gun frigate, and was cruising in consort with the Revolutionnaire, of 38 guns, Captain Twysden, and the Kangaroo, gun-brig, commanded by Captain Brace. On the 15th October, when near Black Cod Bay, two very large French frigates were seen and pursued, but they were lost sight of during the night. The next morning, however, ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... pictures for framing (no text), viz., Krag, Lobo, Tito Cub, Kangaroo Rat, Grizzly, Buffalo, Bear Family, Johnny Bear, Sandhill Stag, Coon Family, Courtaut the Wolf, Tito and her family. Out of ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... causes the main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of travelling shows that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo family, but it is a marked variation of the species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does. Still, it is a curious and interesting variety, and has not been catalogued before. As I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and Kangaroo bicycles a small wheel is "geared up," that is, is made to turn faster than the pedals, so as to avoid the very rapid pedaling which is necessary to obtain an ordinary amount of speed out of a small wheel. In each of these the pedals move in a circular path, and their appearance is in consequence ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... South Australian I wrote an occasional letter or a few verses. Through Mr. George Tinline we made the acquaintance of Mrs. Samuel Stephens her brother, Thomas Hudson Beare, and his family, who had all come out in the Duke of York, and lived six months on Kangaroo Island before South Australia was proclaimed a British province. I have been mixed up so much with this family that it is often supposed that they were relatives, but it was not so. Samuel Stephens ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... native of this country as well as the steppes of Tartary, where it is most commonly found in the shrubless plains; in form it is a miniature of the kangaroo, to which in some of its peculiarities it bears a close resemblance, though in size it is very little larger than our common English rat. The name of the "Vaulting Rat," by which it is known among naturalists, is very applicable. These little animals burrow deeply in the ground, and ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... a complex and tangled control structure, esp. one using many GOTOs, exceptions, or other 'unstructured' branching constructs. Pejorative. The synonym 'kangaroo code' has been reported, doubtless because such code has so many jumps ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... the white man very recently carried them across, there were no monkeys, apes, cats, bears, tigers, wolves, elephants, horses, squirrels or rabbits. Instead there were found animals that are found nowhere else, and which seem to belong to a different and so-called extinct geologic age, such as the kangaroo, wombats, the platypus—which the sailors used to tell us was neither bird not beast, and yet was both. In birds, Australia has also very strange specimens, such as the ostrich which can not fly, but can outrun a horse and kills its prey by kicking ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... the outer world. Here at the Zoo, besides the opossum, we have kangaroos, wallabies, wallaroos, wombats, and certain other eccentric things, including the Tasmanian devil; but none is a bigger fool than the biggest marsupial, the kangaroo. This is natural, because he has most room to store his imbecility. The kangaroo's general weakness of character is visible all over him. He has never quite made up his mind what to be even now; he is ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... say, but the attempt produced in reality an unearthly screech of delight, with which he went off on a series of bounds worthy of a kangaroo, lasting all the way to his grandfather's, and taking him there in half ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... mammal life, the highest level that it attains in Australia (apart from recent invasions), is the Marsupial. The pouched animals (kangaroo, wallaby, etc.) are the princes of pre-human life in Australia, and represent the highest point that life had reached when that continent was cut off from the rest of the world. A few words on the real significance of the pouch, from which they derive their name, will suffice to explain ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... seems nearer allied to the porpoise than to the tiger, the shrew nearer to the mouse than to the hedgehog; and the Tasmanian wolf looks more like a true wolf, the Tasmanian devil more like a badger, than like a kangaroo: yet the seal is nearer akin to the tiger, the shrew to the hedgehog, and the Tasmanian flesh-eaters are marsupial, like the kangaroo. To overcome this difficulty we must understand the resemblance upon which classification is based to include resemblance of Causation, that is, the fact ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... coming along from looking at two or three good churches," broke in the Tuttle person, "when I seen Sour-dough here having a kind of a mix-up with this man because of him insisting he must ride a kangaroo or something on a merry-go-round, and wanting Sour-dough to ride an ostrich with him, and then when we got him quieted down a little, nothing would do him but he's got to be a cowboy—you seen his clothes, didn't you? And of course I ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Service The Hope sails The Bellona arrives Cargo damaged Information Two women and a child drowned The Kitty sails for Norfolk Island Ration An Officer sent up to inspect the cultivation at Parramatta A theft committed Works Kangaroo Ground opened Settlers Liberty Plains Conditions Bellona sails Transactions The Shah Hormuzear from Calcutta arrives Information received by her The Dholl expended Sickness and death occasioned by the American spirits ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... burst with amazement! Such a cruel, heartless charge! I never had seen Cochin China! I never had heard of Wakawak! I didn't know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo! I did not know what to do. I was crazed and helpless. I let the day slip away without doing anything at all. The next morning the same paper had ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... back to camp in the late afternoon, we often saw a kangaroo rat (Alactaga mongolica?) jumping across the plain, and when we had driven it into a hole, we could be sure to catch it in a trap the following morning. They are gentle little creatures, with huge, round eyes, long, ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... named Sharks' Bay, for the reason that his men caught and ate, among other things, many sharks, including one eleven feet long, and says Dampier, "Our men eat them very savorilly." He gives us, too, a description of the kangaroo, the first introduction of that animal to civilization. Says the navigator, "The land animals that we saw here were only a sort of racoons, different from those of the West Indies, chiefly as to their legs; for ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... synonimous terms. So they are in our time. Two men of sympathetic sentiments are said to jump in a judgment. We have also a sect of just men in Wales called jumpers. Strange that the same motion that carries a man to heaven should carry a Kangaroo to Botany Bay! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... Joel's grasp on Davie's arm dropped, and he slunk back. Then Ben pulled him into a place next to him, quiet was restored, and Polly was soon launched on one of her wonderful stories, "Mr. Kangaroo and the silly little Duck," and presently they were all so absorbed that no one noticed the sun was shining brightly, until they heard a voice, "Well, I declare, sitting down in the day-time to ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... live camelopard, "twelve foot high, if he is an inch, ma'am?" Herschel is well acquainted with him, and was so fortunate as to see the first interview between him and a kangaroo: it stood and gazed for one instant, and the next leaped at once over the camelopard's head, and he and his great friend became ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... I, "I wouldn't rub it in, if I were you. I seem to recall a public day when old Gilman Temple, the committee man, asked you what was the largest bird that flies, and you said, 'The Kangaroo.'" ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... had light backs, and some few had arms. They were mostly about the height of those now used in Europe, the seat nearly in a line with the bend of the knee; but some were very low, and others offered that variety of position which we seek in the kangaroo chairs of our own drawing-room. The ordinary fashion of the legs was in imitation of those of some wild animal, as the lion or the goat, but more usually the former, the foot raised and supported on a short pin; and, what is remarkable, the skill of their ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... the money in hand. To recover this amount, held as indemnity, suit has been threatened against me. Of course I can't force their hands, but I sincerely hope they will feel exultant enough over your kangaroo decision to file their action before taking their usual outing in Europe. They will have no trouble in securing my legal address, my rating can be obtained from any commercial agency, and no doubt their attorneys are aware of the statute of limitation in ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... said that Matthew had gone to Bright River to meet a kangaroo from Australia Mrs. Rachel could not have been more astonished. She was actually stricken dumb for five seconds. It was unsupposable that Marilla was making fun of her, but Mrs. Rachel was almost forced ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and all the Ark Should soon be snoring in the dark, The elephant and kangaroo, The lion and the curled horn gnu, Have gone to bed, and so should ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... wild desire to order a special train, but bought a great gray kangaroo cloak lined with glossy black marten, and then retired into himself ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... gained their freedom. Some of them took black gins, and never troubled the colonists again; beyond, perhaps, coming down to a station and carrying off a sheep or two, or a bullock, when they got sick of kangaroo ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... kangaroo, native dog, (which is a smaller species of the wolf,) the wombat, bandicoot, kangaroo rat, opossum, flying squirrel, flying fox, etc. etc. There are none of those animals or birds which go by the name of "game" in this country, except the heron. The hare, pheasant ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... which she immediately did, and began to bray horribly. The little wretch was so delighted with this feat, that he turned about a dozen somersaults, and then, for the amusement of the Giant and his friends, he changed the old sorceress successively into a lion, a pig, an old hen, a turtle, a kangaroo, a boa-constrictor, an ape, a lobster, a cat, a crocodile, and a crane. He declared his intention of going through these exercises until he had used up the whole animal kingdom, and seemed delighted to think that he could have ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... gentlemen," sang out William, after the pair had successfully stood the test; "the animals went in two by two; the elephant and the kangaroo!" and as usual there was a laugh at this sally, which applied so aptly ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... in securing this acquaintance, as she was in having for a partner "Mr Cooke of the Guards," better known in London society as "Kangaroo Cooke," for many years private aide-de-camp and secretary to the Duke of York, and of whom Gronow relates that, "He was in the best society and always attracted attention by his dandified mode of dress." Still more, besides frequenting ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... more ancient progenitor of the Old and New World monkeys. The Quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal [usually provided with a pouch for the reception and nourishment of the young, as in the case of the kangaroo] and this through a long line of diversified forms, from some reptile-like or some amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of the past we can see that the early progenitor of all the Vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal, provided with ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... by daylight observation only. The following remarks of Professor Owen, in respect to Australia are very suggestive:—"All the marsupial animals—and it is one of their curious peculiarities—are nocturnal. Even the kangaroo, which is the least so, is scarcely ever seen feeding out on the plains in broad daylight: it prefers the early morning dawn, or the short twilight; and, above all, the bright moonlight nights. With regard to most of the other Australian forms ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... snow,—that of the jumping mouse. So far as I know, it is the only one of our mice that hibernates. It is much more rare than its cousin the deer mouse, or white-footed mouse, and I have never known it to be found in barns or dwellings. I think I have heard it called the kangaroo mouse, because of its form and its manner of running, which is in long leaps. Its fore legs are small and short, and its hind legs long and strong. It bounds along, leaping two or more feet at a time. I used to see it when a boy, but have ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... after preaching his last sermon, was next day made the recipient of that most fashionable and threadbare of all things, a presentation. Originally he indulged in odd pranks, said strange things, was laughably eccentric, and did for a period appear to be, in an ecclesiastical sense, what the kangaroo of Artemus Ward was in a zoological one—"the most amoozin little cuss ever introduced to a discriminatin public." He has still some of the "amoozin" traits about him; but during his curacy in St. Peters district he showed that he could work hard, visit often, look after the poor, ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... to religion finally, it may be briefly said that she believed in God in much the same way as she believed in Australia, for she had no doubt whatever as to the existence of either, and she went to church on Sunday in much the same spirit as she would look at a kangaroo in the Zoological Gardens, for kangaroos ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... You open your mouth, pin back your ears and in go pickles, red cabbage, Dutch cheese. It's insanity, Marny, and it's vulgar. No man's epigastric can stand it. It wouldn't make any difference if you were a kangaroo with your pouch on the outside, but you're a full-grown man and ought to ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... were holding "kangaroo" court in the New Orleans jail. Every vagrant picked up by the police was tried and sentenced and shipped out to a chain-gang camp. Nearly every man tried was convicted. And there were plenty of camp bosses ready to "buy" every ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... are produced within the body of the parent in appropriate ovaries, where they are retained for a time. They are then transferred to a kind of marsupial pouch, analogous to that of the kangaroo, where their development proceeds. After passing through certain changes here, the egg issues from the maternal pouch as an oval body, clothed with cilia—an animalcule in external aspect, and as unlike its parent as can well be imagined. For awhile the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... two-and-six-penny piece. Whenever there is any thing to be seen, an Englishman must go and see it; and, in the eager warmth of excited spirits, he will run after any vehicle, no matter whether caravan or carriage; no matter whence it comes or whither it goes; no matter whether its contents be a kangaroo or a cannibal chief, a giraffe or a Princess Rusty Fusty. He hears of an arrival from foreign parts, that is sufficient; a crowd is collected, and the 'interesting stranger' is cheered with enthusiasm, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... he writes, "for that sort of pleasure which results from the discovery even of the barrenest spot upon the globe, this coast of New Holland would not have charmed me much." His first sight of the kangaroo—now the emblem of Australia—is interesting. He describes it as "a sort of raccoon, different from that of the West Indies, chiefly as to the legs, for these have very short fore-legs, but go jumping upon them as the others do, and like them are very good meat." This must have been the small kangaroo, ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... aplacentals, or those which bring forth immature young, which are grouped into two divisions, i.e., (1) the monotremes, or one-vented animals, in which group belong the duck-bills, spiny ant-eaters, etc.; and (2) the marsupials, or pouched animals, in which group belong the kangaroo, opossum, etc. ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... is the best card in our pack," declared Fred, stoutly. "You see, he's slated to run in all the shorter sprints, and we expect him to leave the other fellows at the post, for he's as fleet as a deer—Bristles says kangaroo, because of that queer jump he has. They haven't got a ghost of a show in any race Colon takes part in; and I guess they ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... dragged into his speech all the dialects known in the Green Isle, and perhaps supplemented them with some inventions of his own. That great American humorist might have said of Felix just what he did of the kangaroo. ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... this round, and verily no wonder! The Money-boxing Kangaroo is plucky: But when a chance-blow smites the jaw like thunder, A champion may ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... followed close upon Jones' last words. Then two yellow streaks leaped down the ravine. The first was the lion, the second was Don. The rest of the pack came tumbling helter-skelter in their wake. Following them raced Jim in long kangaroo leaps, with Jones in the rear, running for all he was worth. The animated and musical procession passed up out of the ravine and gradually lengthened as the lion gained and Jones lost, till it passed ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... gun, and easing off both barrels amongst the cockatoos, wallabies, or whatever particular class of robbers happened to be afield at the moment—a practice which served as a safety-valve for my injured feelings, whilst at the same time it provided me with a cockatoo pie, or a good bowl of kangaroo-tail soup. ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... was Colonial born, and could have sat a kangaroo, I should think! She was a different article from ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... would call him by a certain name—one generally derived from some object in the animal or vegetable world, and pointing to a resemblance which was not often patent to any eye but the master's own. He had given the name of Peachy, for instance to William Wilson, because, like the kangaroo, he sought his object in a succession of awkward, yet not the less availing leaps—gulping his knowledge and pocketing his conquered marble after a like fashion. Mappy, the name which thus belonged to a certain flaxen haired, soft eyed girl, corresponds to the English bunny. Sheltie ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... administration. The discussion of legislation by the whole House has been made to seem futile by the crack of the party whip, by obstruction, and by the weapons designed to deal with obstruction—the closure, the guillotine, the kangaroo. A real amendment has been brought about in this sphere by the establishment of a system of committees to which legislative proposals of various kinds are referred, and this is one of the most hopeful features of recent development. But there is still one important sphere of legislation in ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... sympathy with the implication that the present is worse than the past in matters of dress. Compare the fashion plates of the seventeenth century with the fashion plates of the nineteenth, and you decide in favor of our day. The women of Isaiah's time beat anything now. Do we have the kangaroo fashion Isaiah speaks of—the daughters who walked with "stretched forth necks?" Talk of hoops! Isaiah speaks of women with "round tires like the moon." Do we have hot irons for curling our hair? Isaiah speaks of "wimples and crisping pins." Do we sometimes wear glasses astride ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... of these were the remains of enemies, and white persons whom they had killed, but more as the mementos of the affection which they bore to the husband or children whom they had lost. They each carried a handful of spears. They wore the usual kangaroo skin cloak thrown over the back or shoulder, and thickly smeared with red ochre and grease. Their hair as well as skin was also thickly coated with the same, the hair being carefully dressed or formed by its help into neat little knots or globules ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... of Tish for some time was her horse leaping a mountain stream, and jumping like a kangaroo, and ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... variations.—These must be useful at once.—Difficulties as to the giraffe; as to mimicry; as to the heads of flat-fishes; as to the origin and constancy of the vertebrate, limbs; as to whalebone; as to the young kangaroo; as to sea-urchins; as to certain processes of {viii} metamorphosis; as to the mammary gland; as to certain ape characters; as to the rattlesnake and cobra; as to the process of formation of the eye and ear; as to the fully developed condition of the eye and ear; as to the voice; as to ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... mouth several times. It was a quadruped; that is to say, it was provided with four legs, but while its front legs were so short as to be little more than rudimentary, its hind legs were as long and apparently as powerful, proportionately, as those of a kangaroo. And, like a kangaroo, it was provided with a long tail, as thick at the root as its own body, tapering away to a blunt point. Indeed, as Dick remarked, he could scarcely describe the creature better ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... China. In the male, the lower pair of fins are separate, as is usual among fish; but in the female, represented in the accompanying sketch, they are lightly joined at the edge, so as to form a sort of pouch like a kangaroo's, in which the eggs are deposited after being laid, and thus carried about in the mother's safe keeping. No. 5 shows the arrangement of this pouch in detail, with the eggs inside it. The mother Solenostoma not only takes charge of the spawn while it is hatching in this receptacle, but also looks ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... Has he, though! I wonder who will have our room at Cookesley's? Cookesley was a good fellow! Oh, capital! How well he behaved when there was that row about our going out with the hounds? Do you remember Vere's face? It makes me laugh now when I think of it. I tell you who was a good fellow, Kangaroo Gray; I liked him. I don't know any fellow who sang ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Old Man Kangaroo—we had to!" smiled Phyllis. "There's chickenpox at our usual summer home, so we basely fled, leaving Johnny to struggle ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... and after acknowledging my presence by a polite bow, prooeeded to define the platform on which he stood—Oregon pine. The papers, with thare usuil fidelity to fax, had stated that the entertainment would consist only of a lectoor, & that the kangaroo & wax-figgers would not be introdooced—"dooced queer," thinks I, and I soon discovered the telegram; for Mr. Ward used a number of ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... his arguments. I retorted that human beings were not moral kangaroos, who could proceed by leaps, and that even the kangaroo is obliged to allow the tip of his tail to follow his paws. I said that in the moral as well as in the physical world it is simply a choice between standing still and putting one foot before the other; that one cannot get upstairs ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... to the ship for a fishing-net our crafty Hook sent Silver leaping; Back he came on his pounding crutch, for all the world like a kangaroo; And we caught the net and up to the Sleeper on hands and knees we all went creeping, Flung it across him and staked it down! 'Twas the best of our dreams and the dream ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... the stone into the air. It missed its aim; but the jackal, deeming it on the whole prudent to decamp, disappeared across the trees and hedges with a series of bounds, which could only be likened to those that might be made by an india-rubber kangaroo. Ben Zoof was sure that his own powers of propelling must equal those of a howitzer, for his stone, after a lengthened flight through the air, fell to the ground full five hundred paces the other side of ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... Carmichael and I at first walked across the plain, we being encamped upon its southern end. It was beautifully grassed, and had good soil, and it would make an excellent racecourse, or ground for a kangaroo hunt. We saw numbers of kangaroos, and emus too, but could get no shots at them. In three miles the plain ended in thick, indeed very dense, scrub, which continued to the foot of the hills; in it the grass was long, dry, and tangled with dead and dry burnt sticks and timber, making it exceedingly ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... the rule of William III., William Dampier was despatched to New Holland to make further discoveries. He retraced the explorations of the Dutch from Dirk Hartog's Bay to New Guinea, and appears to have been the first European to have noticed the habits of the kangaroo; otherwise his voyage did not add much to geographical knowledge, though when he left the coasts of New Guinea he steered between ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... figure. The spots resemble two eyes and the sketch of a nose; resulting in a vague human figure, as indicated on the lower disk. Others see a man carrying a bundle of wood, a hare, a lion, a dog, a kangaroo, a sickle, two heads embracing, etc.[13] But generally speaking, there is a tendency to see a ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... bitterly disappointed about Tunis. I have no letters to big people in Cairo only subalterns but I shall probably get along. I always manage somehow with my "artful little Ikey ways." It was most gratifying to mark my return to this boat. One young woman danced a Kangaroo dance and the Captain wept and all the stewards stood in a line and grinned. I sing Chevalier's songs and they all sit in the dining room below and forget to lay out the plates and last night some of the Royal Berkshire with whom I dined at Malta came ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... Kooroora Fainting by the Way Song of the Cattle-Hunters Footfalls God Help Our Men at Sea Sitting by the Fire Bellambi's Maid The Curlew Song The Ballad of Tanna The Rain Comes Sobbing to the Door Urara Evening Hymn Stanzas The Wail in the Native Oak Harps We Love Waiting and Wishing The Wild Kangaroo Clari Wollongong Ella with the Shining Hair The Barcoo Bells Beyond the Forest Ulmarra The Maid of Gerringong Watching The Opossum-Hunters In the Depths of a Forest To Charles Harpur The River and the Hill The Fate of the Explorers Lurline Under the Figtree ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... attendance with a couple of greyhounds in leash, and a motley pack of wicked little terriers frisking and frolicking behind him. This mongrel collection is known as 'the Bobbery Pack,' and forms a certain adjunct to every assistant's bungalow in the district. I had one very noble-looking kangaroo hound that I had brought from Australia with me, and my 'bobbery pack' of terriers contained canine specimens of all sorts, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... was Colonel Cooke, commonly called Kangaroo Cooke, who was for many years the private aide-de-camp and secretary of H. R. H. the Duke of York. He was the brother of General Sir George Cooke and of the beautiful Countess of Cardigan, mother of the gallant Lord ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... unimportant; so, at the risk of advertising an Australian immigrant of Fulham—who, like the Kangaroo of his country, is born with a pocket and puts everything into it—and, in spite of much wise advice, we ought not to resist the joy of noticing how readily a hurried contemporary has fallen a prey to ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... men has probably arisen from inattentive observers, seeing people clothed in the skins of beasts, with the tails hanging down. The natives of New South Wales wear tails in imitation of the Kangaroo: Yet, having been closely observed, are not described ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... perfect contradiction. He always laughs and cries in the wrong place. 'Charles,' he said, with a loud laugh, 'tell the girls to get some new music against I return: and, hark ye! if I never come back, I leave them my Kangaroo Waltz as a legacy.'" ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Rocket after dark. A successful haul. More Natives. Miago's Heroism. The plague of Flies. Dampier's description of it. Native Habitations. Underweigh. Wind and weather. Tidal Phenomenon. Natural History. Singular Kangaroo. Bustard. Cinnamon Kangaroo. Quails. Goanas and Lizards. Ant Hills. Fishing over the side. A day in the Bush. A flood of fire. Soil and Productions. White Ibis. Curious Tree. Rain water. Geology of the Cliffs. Weigh, and graze a Rock, or Touch and go. The Twins. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... 'adaptation,' which we have hitherto used, does not express satisfactorily the peculiarities of all the characters in the former of these two divisions. If we consider three examples—enlarged hind-legs for jumping as in kangaroo or frog, absence of colour from the lower sides of Flat-fishes, and, thirdly, the finlets on the lower side of Zeugopterus—we see that they represent three different kinds of characters, all ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... hitherto discovered, with very few exceptions, are all of the kangaroo or opossum tribe; having their hinder legs long, out of all proportion when compared with the length of the fore legs, and a sack under the belly of the female for the reception of ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... strikes an attitood, with fore paws danglin' at half-mast, to be admired by a dandifide lot of Tommynoodles of the opposite sects, the opinion of this ere cort is, that insted of Greshun bend, it had orter be called Kangaroo bend. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... rise early, and after a light breakfast to visit the Public Gardens with his sister. He had many friends—Mrs Bronson is our informant—whose wants or wishes he bore in mind—the prisoned elephant, the baboon, the kangaroo, the marmosets, the pelicans, the ostrich; three times, with strict punctuality, he made his rounds, and then returned to his apartment. At noon appeared the second and more substantial breakfast, at which Italian dishes were preferred. ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... the kangaroos have many points of remarkable interest. Their keeper tells me that he does not agree with the opinion that they are unintelligent creatures. Though not so docile and smart as other inmates of the Gardens, he has succeeded in training the great kangaroo to perform several tricks. They all recognise him readily, and do what he tells them. He entered the shed for the purpose of fetching the female kangaroo out of the house, so that I might see the baby kangaroo in its mother's pouch. But it so happened that the ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... sententiously, "there is only one species of kangaroos to me, that is 'kangaroo on the spit,' and it's just the one ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... unbroken sweep of vision to the embouchure, and masked by forest from Porto da Lenha. It is easily known by its two tall trees, and that nearest the sea, when viewed from the east, appears surmounted by what resemble the "Kangaroo's Head:" they are cones of regular shape, covered to the topmost twig with the lightest green Flagellaria. The "bush" now becomes beautiful, rolling in bulging masses of verdure to the very edge of the clear brown stream. As in the rivers of Guinea, the llianas form fibrous chains, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... fire-eating fellow to fix on me for this particular service," said he to one of the settlers named Hugh Barnes, a cooper, who acted as one of his captains; "and at night too, just as if a man of my years were a cross between a cat, (which everybody knows can see in the dark,) and a kangaroo, which is said to be a powerful leaper, though whether in the dark or the light I don't pretend to know—not being informed on the point. Have a care, Hugh. It seems to me you're going to step into a quarry hole, or over a precipice. How my old flesh quakes, ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... a small basket, full of pieces of silica, behind him. He was not afraid to return in search of it, but approached Creton with a bold air, possibly owing to his confidence in his own strength. Some of these savages were naked, and others wore only a kangaroo skin upon the shoulders. In colour they were nearly black; they had woolly hair, and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... was out of sight. In the evening they doubled Cape Borda, and came alongside Kangaroo Island. This is the largest of the Australian islands, and a great hiding place for runaway convicts. Its appearance was enchanting. The stratified rocks on the shore were richly carpeted with verdure, and innumerable ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... beavers,[11] the fur-bearing chinchilla, the jerboa (Dipus), the musk-rat (Fiber), and the rat-mole (Spalax). The jerboa has very long hind legs, and a habit of jumping, so that it resembles superficially (but not really) a small kangaroo. The Spalax is quite blind, and has the burrowing habit, and somewhat the shape of the common mole. Some rodents are fitted to flit through the air in long jumps, by means of the wide extensibility of ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... wonder, a raking bay — One of the grand old Snowdon strain — One of the sort that could race and stay With his mighty limbs and his length of rein. Born and bred on the mountain side, He could race through scrub like a kangaroo, The girl herself on his back might ride, And the Swagman ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... of extreme simplicity. Many degrees removed from the industrial, almost as far from the agricultural state, the Australian is hardly even a hunter—except so far as the kangaroo or wombat are beasts of chase. Families—scarcely large enough to be called tribes or clans—wander over wide but allotted areas. Nowhere is the approach to an ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... observes, that this seal is found at Rottnest Island on the West Coast, and at King George the Third's Sound. It appeared also to be the same species that frequents Shark's Bay; and, if it is M. Peron's Otaria cinerea, it is also found as far to the eastward as Kangaroo Island. ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... sea-cow, a great fat beast weighing an enormous amount, which floated in the sea. And at the end of the room is one of the strangest of animals. Picture a creature as high as the room, standing up on its hind legs like a kangaroo, and having very strong fore-arms, with which it clutches a small tree. This is the skeleton we see now. It could have packed you away inside it and never known you were there; but, luckily for the children who lived on earth ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton |
