Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, and the Antilles, in the years 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824. With original instructions for the perfect preservation of birds, &c. for cabinets of natural history / By Charles Waterton.

  • Waterton, Charles, 1782-1865.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States, and the Antilles, in the years 1812, 1816, 1820, and 1824. With original instructions for the perfect preservation of birds, &c. for cabinets of natural history / By Charles Waterton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Third Journey. After this pitiful stretch of power, and bad compliment to the other officers of the customs, who had been satisfied with the valuation, this man had the folly to take me aside, and after assuring me that he had a great regard for the arts and sciences, he lamented that conscience obliged him to do what he had done, and he wished he had been fifty miles from Liverpool at the time that it fell to his lot to detain the collection. Had he looked in my face as he said this, he would have seen no marks of credulity there. I now returned to the Custom-house, and after express- ing my opinion of the officer’s conduct at the depot, I pulled a bunch of keys (which belonged to the detained boxes) out of my pocket, laid them on the table, took my leave of the gentlemen present, and soon after set off for Yorkshire. I saved nothing from the grasp of the stranger officer, but a pair of live Malay fowls, which a gentleman in George-town had made me a present of. I had collected in the forest several eggs of curious birds, in hopes of introducing the breed into England, and had taken great pains in doing them over with gum arabic, and in packing them in charcoal, according to a receipt I had seen in the gazette, from the “ Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.” But these were detained in the depot, instead of being placed under a hen; which utterly ruined all my hopes of rearing a new species of birds in England. Titled