Governor Macquarie’s chest: an extraordinary colonial relic.
THE feathers of the birds lying side by side in the box seem almost as fresh and bright as if they'd been trapped yesterday, rather than preserved with arsenic two centuries ago. There are about 80 of them: a tawny frogmouth, a vivid kingfisher, parrots, a regent bowerbird and many more. Some of the drawers in the Macquarie Chest. Photo by Sylvia Ray . Seashells, arranged in geometric patterns by an unknown hand on the strange, wild shores of a new-found country, gleam in their drawers as though just gathered from the beach. Every drawer in this plain-looking wooden chest reveals peculiar…