A companion to the Liverpool Museum, containing a brief description of ... natural and foreign curiosities, etc. ... now open for inspection, in the Great Room, No. 22, Piccadilly / [W. Bullock].

  • Bullock, W. (William), 1773?-1849
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A companion to the Liverpool Museum, containing a brief description of ... natural and foreign curiosities, etc. ... now open for inspection, in the Great Room, No. 22, Piccadilly / [W. Bullock]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ufual food of the Bear confifts of feals, filh, and the carcafes of whales ; but when on land, they prey on deer and other animals. They eat alfo various kinds of berries they happen to find. They are frequently feen in Greenland in droves, allured by the fcent of the fiefh of feals, and they will fometimes furround the dwellings of the natives, and attempt to break in; and it is added, that the moft fuccefsful method of repelling them is by the fmell of burnt feathers. They grow extremely fat, a hundred pounds of greafe having been taken from a (ingle beaft. The flefh is faid to be coarfe, but tl^e (kin is valued for the coverings of various kinds, and the Greenlanders often wear it as a cloathing. The fplit tendons are faid to form an excellent thread. During the fummer they refide chiefly on the ice iflands, and pafs frequently from one to the other; being expert fwimmers. They have been feen on thele ice iflands at the diftance of more than eighty miles from land, preying and feeding as they float along. 7'hey lodge in dens, formed in the vail maffes of ice, which are piled in a ftupendous manner, leaving great caverns beneath; here they breed, and bring forth one or two at a time. The affec- tion between the parent and the young is fo great, that they will fooner die than defert each other. They follow their dams a long time, and grow to a large fize before they quit them. During winter they retire, and bed themfelves deep beneath the fnow, or elfe beneath the fixed mountains of ice, where they pafs in aflate of torpidity the long and difmal Ar6Iic nights, appearing only with the returns of the fun. The fkins of the Polar Bear, fays Pennant, were formerly offered by the hunters in the Arctic regions to the high altars of the cathedrals and other churches, for the prieft to ftand on during the celebration of mafs in winter.—Prefented by S. Staniforth, efq; of Liverpool. The Glutton, (Urfus Gulo.) The Young Kangaroo, (Didelpbis Giganiea, Macropus Major, Shaw’s Zoology.) Of all the animals which the vaft ifland or rather continent of Auftralafra has prefented to our view, the Kangaroo mud be con- fidered as one of the moft extraordinary ; its fize, general confor- mation, teeth, and other particulars, confpiring to render it a moft interefting obje£f to every naturalift. The firft difeovery of this remarkable quadruped was in the year 1770, when Capt. Cook was ftationed on the coaft of New Holland. It is the only quadruped our colonifts have yet met with in New South-Wales that fupplies them with animal food. There are two kinds; the largeft that has been fhot weighed about 140 lbs. and meafured from the point of the nol'e to the end of the tail 6 feet 1 inch; the tail 2 feet 1 inch; head 8 inches : fore leg 1 foot; hind legs 2 feet 8 inches; circumfe- rence of the fore part of the body near the leg 1 foot 1 inch ; and of the hind part 3 feet. The fmaller kind feldom exceeds 6olbs. This animal is furniftied with a pouch fimilar to that of the opoflum, in which its young are nurfed and flieltercd. It feeds on grafs and
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