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.In the woods are various little songsters,whose notes are equally sweet and plaintive.
Of quadrupeds,except the kangaroo,I have little to say.The few met with are almost invariably of the opossum tribe,but even these do not abound.
To beasts of prey we are utter strangers,nor have we yet any cause to believe that they exist in the country.And happy it is for us that they do not,as their presence would deprive us of the only fresh meals the settlement affords,the flesh of the kangaroo.This singular animal is already known in Europe by the drawing and description of Mr.Cook.To the drawing nothing can be objected but the position of the claws of the hinder leg,which are mixed together like those of a dog,whereas no such indistinctness is to be found in the animal I am describing.It was the Chevalier De Perrouse who pointed out this to me,while we were comparing a kangaroo with the plate,which,as he justly observed,is correct enough to give the world in general a good idea of the animal,but not sufficiently accurate for the man of science.
