INTRODUCTION. 



XV 



duties, to superintend the preservation of stuffed specimens of birds 

 and other animals ; a task requiring a degree of taste as well as of skill 

 and attention, which perhaps persons accustomed to these matters can 

 alone duly appreciate. The public collection of plants and minerals 

 on board the Fury has been in great part made and entirely arranged 

 by Mr. Halse, to whose industry and attention in these departments 

 for several years past I am particularly desirous to do justice. So 

 general however have the taste for collecting and the skill in pre- 

 serving become, among the individuals employed on these Expeditions, 

 that much additional interest has been derived from an examination 

 of the distinct collections of plants and minerals made by several of 

 the officers, and particularly from that of Mr. Edwards, whose notes on 

 the Natural History of these regions have added much valuable infor- 

 mation on this subject. Some skeletons of animals have been prepared 

 for the Museum of the College of Surgeons by Mr. Skeoch, among 

 which those of a wolf and an Esquimaux dog will perhaps not be 

 considered the least interesting, as shewing the comparative anatomy 

 of those two animals. Soon after the arrival of the ships in the river 

 Thames, the pubUc Collections of Subjects of Xatural History were 

 put into the hands of three gentlemen well quahfied to describe them. 

 I need only mention the names of Professor Jameson, Professor Hooker, 

 and Dr. Richardson, to assure the pubhc how much justice will be 

 done to their description ; but I cannot omit this opportunity of offer- 

 ing my wannest thanks to these gentlemen for the kind and handsome 

 manner in which they did me the favour to undertake this task. 



A monthly Abstract of the Meteorological Register is inserted in its 

 proper order in the course of the narrative, that method having been 

 considered most convenient for reference, on a subject necessarily 



