I Cannot Quit This Subject Without Regretting, That Some One
Capable Of Throwing A Better Light On It, Is Not In The Colony.
Nor can I help
being equally concerned, that an experienced botanist was not sent out,
for the purpose of collecting and describing the rare and beautiful plants
with which the country abounds.
Indeed, we flattered ourselves, when at
the Cape of Good Hope, that Mason, the King's botanical gardener,
who was employed there in collecting for the royal nursery at Kew,
would have joined us, but it seems his orders and engagements prevented him
from quitting that beaten track, to enter on this scene of novelty and variety.
To the naturalist this country holds out many invitations. Birds, though not
remarkably numerous, are in great variety, and of the most exquisite beauty
of plumage, among which are the cockatoo, lory, and parroquet; but the bird
which principally claims attention is, a species of ostrich, approaching nearer
to the emu of South America than any other we know of. One of them was shot,
at a considerable distance, with a single ball, by a convict employed
for that purpose by the Governor; its weight, when complete, was
seventy pounds, and its length from the end of the toe to the tip of the beak,
seven feet two inches, though there was reason to believe it had not attained
its full growth. On dissection many anatomical singularities were observed:
the gall-bladder was remarkably large, the liver not bigger than that
of a barn-door fowl, and after the strictest search no gizzard could be found;
the legs, which were of a vast length, were covered with thick, strong scales,
plainly indicating the animal to be formed for living amidst deserts;
and the foot differed from an ostrich's by forming a triangle,
instead of being cloven.
Goldsmith, whose account of the emu is the only one I can refer to, says,
"that it is covered from the back and rump with long feathers, which fall
backward, and cover the anus; these feathers are grey on the back, and white
on the belly." The wings are so small as hardly to deserve the name,
and are unfurnished with those beautiful ornaments which adorn the wings
of the ostrich: all the feathers are extremely coarse, but the construction
of them deserves notice - they grow in pairs from a single shaft, a singularity
which the author I have quoted has omitted to remark. It may be presumed,
that these birds are not very scarce, as several have been seen, some of them
immensely large, but they are so wild, as to make shooting them a matter
of great difficulty. Though incapable of flying, they run with such swiftness,
that our fleetest greyhounds are left far behind in every attempt
to catch them. The flesh was eaten, and tasted like beef.
Besides the emu, many birds of prodigious size have been seen, which promise
to increase the number of those described by naturalists, whenever we shall
be fortunate enough to obtain them; but among these the bat of the
Endeavour River is not to be found.
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