A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator', 28 December 1867—The kangaroos are so multiplying in the neighbourhood of Geelong, that great battues have been recently organized, in three of which alone 4,000 kangaroos were captured and knocked on the head. The plan is to set up great stockades too high for the kan- garoos to jump over, and lead to the mouth of these stockades by widely diverging stockade alleys, into which the kangaroos are driven by horsemen formed in a semicircle. In one of the battues, how- ever, the poor creatures discovered the trap, and had the pluck to turn back in a large body, so that several hundreds forced their way out in spite of the hunters, and escaped. . . . Two kangaroos are said to eat as much grass as three sheep, hence this St Bartholomew's Day of Kangaroos.
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