Rebecca Beasley, age 10, Crown Point, Ind.,for her. question:
What is a rock wallaby?
The wallabies are closely related to the kangaroos. In fact, if they were bigger, they would be called kangaroos. There are many varieties of wallaby in Australia and Tasmania, ranging in size all the way from a small kangaroo to a sizeable rat.
The rock wallaby is rabbit sized. He also wears a rabbit type coat. He gets his name, not because he eats rocks, but from the fact that he makes his home among the rocks. His home may be a rocky crevice quite some distance from his feeding grounds; He will beat a path as he travels to and from his dinner. But chances are, you will never see him hopping to and fro.
Like many of the small kangaroos, this fellow sleeps by day and feeds by night. With luck, you may spot him returning home just before sunrise. You might mistake him for a jack rabbit, for he travels along in leaps and. bounds.
Being a kangaroo, the little rock wallaby has powerful back legs and a powerful tail. His front legs are small and. hardly ever used for walking. The little fellow has a mouse‑like face with a pointed nose and round ears like a pair of folded leaves. His face has a sleepy expression, especially in the daytime.
Most kangaroos are grey or drab brown. Wallabies, however, may be daintily tinted and vaguely striped. The coat is always thick and soft but the color varies through brown, gold, grey, black and white. In times past, wallaby fur was used to make elegant carriage rugs.
The rock wallaby is a very hard fellow to catch. He may look sleepy but he is actually very wide awake. At the first sign of trouble, off he bounds, leaping from rock to rock. Chasing him, you might slip and break a leg. But not so the little wallaby. His back feet are thickly padded to prevent sliding on slippery rocks. If you manage to scare him out of his rocky background, the agile fellow will make for a tree and spring up into its branches.
Being a kangaroo, the wallaby is a marsupial. The baby is reared in a pouch on Mama's stomach. The naked,, blind and helpless little fellow is almost always an only child. He stays inside his pouch until he is big enough to take a peep out at the world. By this time he has a fur coat and. a pair of very bright eyes.
The rock wallaby, like all kangaroos, is a vegetarian. The bid; kangaroo is tall enough to pick the leaves from high shrubs ‑‑And even from trees. But the rock wallaby is a sporty and must content; himself with grasses and the foliage from low growing shrubs,