• Title
  Driving in Kangaroos / possibly by Hailey or Bailey?
• Call number
  ML 1409
  
• Level of description
  fonds
• Date
  
  not after ca 1880
• Type of material
  Graphic Materials, Drawings
• Reference code
  825159
• Issue Copy
  Digitised
• Physical Description
  1 watercolour - 24 x 34 cm (sight) in frame 56.3 x 63.8 cm
  
• Scope and Content
  A framed watercolour depicting a kangaroo drive, probably preliminary to their corralling and culling. It shows a large kangaroo population surrounded by riders in the foreground but also suggested around the full perimeter of a bush clearing. Includes one woman rider wearing riding habit.
  
  The drawing records the beginning of the charge of riders, some groups of kangaroos having not yet fled from their pursuers.
  
  References:
  Library correspondence file
  Kangaroos : biology of the largest marsupials / Terence Dawson. Sydney : UNSW Press, 1995
• Access Conditions
  
  Access via appointment
• Copying Conditions
  Out of copyright: Artist died before 1955
  Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
• Description source
  
  Titled in an unknown hand, in pencil, lower left.
• General note
  
  The idea of using kangaroos for sport is well documented by artists such as S.T. Gill, Thomas Balcombe, Edward Roper, Eugene von Guerard and Edward Winstanley, and many first hand written accounts also exist. Hunting in the manner of English foxhunts was popular from the early 19th century in Australia. Hunting clubs were established in Australia, often using the same rules and riding habits as in England.
  
  Less well documented is the driving of animals for culling, as depicted here. By the 1870s large scale destruction of animals – including rabbits, dingoes and kangaroos – was not unusual, especially in times of drought, as a means of controlling the population and alleviating damage to agriculture. In 1882 the rounding up and destruction of animals was acknowledged in the NSW Pastures and Stock protection Act.
  
  The principal method was the kangaroo drive, or battue, derived from the Aboriginal hunting method of beating bushes and woods to flush game into an enclosed space, similar to the scene depicted here. Thousands of animals could be killed using this technique.
  
  Reference:
  Kangaroos : biology of the largest marsupials / Terence Dawson. Sydney : UNSW Press, 1995
  Digital order no:Album ID : 1004836
• Signatures / Inscriptions
  
  Signed lower left, possibly Hailey or Bailey?
• Subject
  Kangaroo hunting.
  Art, Colonial--Australia.
  Adult Females
  Adult Males
  Kangaroos--Pictorial works.
  
• Topic
  horses
  horseriders
  
• Open Rosetta viewer
  IE432118

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