Joseph Banks – In Australiahind legs are disproportionally long; with these it hops seven or eight feet at each hop.Parkinson also describes how Banks found an equally unusual creature in the woods,
a possum which had a membranous bag near its stomach where it concealed and
carried two young ones sucking at her teat. So we have the first detailed descriptions
of the pouch-bearing marsupials that characterize Australian fauna.
During their stay at Endeavour River the crew made almost daily contact with the
local Aborigines, but they generally kept out of each other’s way. The natives here
used outrigger canoes which were an improvement on the bark canoes the Aborigines
had used in Botany Bay. They were mainly out catching fish, stingray and turtle,
which were also the main food source being gathered by the stranded sailors. The
Endeavour crew had the most success in gathering turtles, which were 200 or 300
pounds in weight and seemed to be abundant. The Aborigines obviously resented the
sailors gathering so many turtles which were also their main food source and Banks
described how they were visited by ten Aborigines armed with spears:
The Kongouro from New Holland, George Stubbs, 1772, National Maritime Museum, London39