Tasmanian friends and foes : feathered, furred, and finned; a family chronicle of country life, nature history, and veritable adventure / [Mrs. Charles Meredith].

  • Meredith, Charles, Mrs., 1812-1895.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tasmanian friends and foes : feathered, furred, and finned; a family chronicle of country life, nature history, and veritable adventure / [Mrs. Charles Meredith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE. TN the following pages are gathered and woven into connected sequence some ^ of the incidents and observations which a residence of thirty-nine years in Tasmania has served to collect. Every adventure narrated is strictly true; and the anecdotes of birds and animals are facts, set down simply from our own experience. The one feature in the book in which Fiction may claim a share, is the personnel of the characters, and the slender thread of domestic story on which the beads of reality are strung. Even though some reader of enquiring mind may think he can identify some members of the Merton family, he will vainly seek originals for the inmates at the “Pines” or “Walloora.” Since writing the chapters on our native animals, I have, for the first time, read the following observations upon them in the article “Marsupialia” in Charrihers's Eneydopcedia, vol. vi., p. 342 :— “ In accordance with this condition of the brain, these animals are all characterised by a low degree of intelligence, and are said (when in captivity) not to manifest any sign of recognition of their feeders.” Whilst regretting that so unjustifiable an opinion should be held by men of science, I am fain to rejoice over those pages of my unpretending book, which I think will supply evidence that the engaging and affectionate animals whose brief memoirs they contain were far from deficient in intelligence. The gentle usage and freedom they enjoyed with us would