The Tower Menagerie : $b comprising the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment; with anecdotes of their characters and history.Bennett, Edward Turner
History
The Tower Menagerie : $b comprising the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment; with anecdotes of their characters and history.
It is with no slight feelings of regret that we find ourselves unable
to furnish a complete and satisfactory account of the animal from whom
the portrait above given was taken. Very soon after the drawing was
completed, and before we had availed ourselves of the opportunity of
making the necessary examination, we were unfortunately precluded from so
doing by his sudden transfer to another country. His likeness alone, and
a faithful and spirited likeness we will venture to pronounce it, remains
with us. From this, and from the very imperfect notes which we possess,
we have little hesitation in referring it provisionally to the species
first established by M. Duvaucel, and since published by M. F. Cuvier
in his splendid Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères. The circumstance,
however, of our animal, the only individual of his species ever seen in
Europe, having been brought from the Island of Sumatra instead of the
continent of India, in which alone the Ursus Thibetanus had hitherto
been discovered, is so remarkable, that we should have felt bound, had
the means still remained open to us, to institute a close and severe
comparison between the living specimen and the figure and description
furnished by M. Duvaucel and M. Cuvier. As it is, we can only repeat
the characters of the Thibet Bear as given by them, and refer to our
figure for all the proof which we have it in our power to offer of its
identity with the present animal. We trust that M. Temminck, or some
other competent naturalist of the country to which the latter has been
conveyed, will amply supply a deficiency which certainly would not have
existed had we received timely notice of the intended transfer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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