MUSEUM PIECES
Oct 02, 2019
1 minute
IT IS DIFFICULT for us to imagine the excitement Australian animals and birds caused when first seen in Europe. How peculiar the kangaroo must have looked; how improbable the platypus seemed. The first returned from the Pacific in 1771. The next year, George Stubbs was the first British artist to depict a kangaroo. His is now in the National Maritime Museum, London. The first live kangaroo was sent as a gift from Governor Phillip to King George III in 1792 and placed on public exhibition in The Regent’s Park, London. In 1793, a female kangaroo gave birth in Richmond Park, London, the first to be born outside Australia.
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