Old news from Armidale and New England

Thursday 21 January 1864, The Sydney Morning Herald

The Armidale Express of 2nd instant states that in the previous week, Mr. Joshua Scholes and some other parties, who were at the Mole River station mustering cattle, went fishing in a leisure hour, when they caught a codfish weighing 52 lbs., which had swallowed a black duck, feathers and all.

A fine “native bear” – a species of sloth – was killed near Armidale about ten days since. It appears that a young man named Taylor, when near the junction of” Tilbuster with Armidale Creek, saw the bear up a tree, and brought him down after three shots. The animal dead weighed 22 lbs. We are informed that native bears are very plentiful at Duval, but the one in question seemed to have get out of his latitude. Some people are fond of them as pets, and they are staled to be quiet, harmless creatures, subsisting on grass and gum leaves, and generally very fat.