Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1892 — A Blood-Sweating Kangaroo. [ARTICLE]

A Blood-Sweating Kangaroo.

London Daily News. On a casual inspection the “red kangaroo” at the zoological gardens appears to be. a perfectly average kangaroo. Its reddish coat alone distinguishes it from the common variety, which is exhibited in an adjoining cage. It possesses, however, a very curious peculiarity, not easily made out while the animal is aiiva On the throat of the male, at any rate, the hair is stained of a crimson color, suggestive of a serious disagreement with his fellowprisoner. This crimson stain is, however, not due to any wound, but is caused by a substance =secreted from the skin. It is curiously analogous to the blood red “sweat” of the hippopotamus, and is not any more easily explicable. Why both these creatures, so widelv separated in the scale of life, should produce, apparently perfectly gratuitously, a similar crimson dye is “hard to understand, unless indeed, this natural rougeing is as attractive to the opposite sex as the artificial kind is supposed to be in our species.