First Fleet artwork collection

Mammal in profile, facing to the left and depicted crouching on a tree branch against a plain background. The animal is predominantly coloured brown to grey overlaid with black hatched lines, with a black and a white stripe along its sides. The tail is curled under the branch and has a clearly delineated central spine. At the top of the sheet there are two diagrams in black ink of an animal's jaws, with sharp teeth and prominent incisors. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

• Port Jackson Painter]
• The drawing is annotated in blue pencil at top right with the number "100". This refers to the pre-1984 numbering system for the Watling Collection.
• The drawing is inscribed in brown ink at bottom "Natural size the small flying squirrel, or by some called the flying Mouse of New South Wales", and at top, beneath diagrams of a pair of jaws, "upper jaw, under jaw".
• The drawing is unsigned and undated.
• This animal has been identified as the Feathertail or Pigmy Glider by John Calaby in Wheeler and Smith (1988). However, Calaby states that the jaws and teeth drawn separately at the top of the sheet do not belong to this species.
• The author of this catalogue record is Suzanne Stenning.
• By permission of the trustees of the Natural History Museum (London)
• Two sets of transparencies held in the Natural History Museum (London) Zoology Library and Picture Library: Picture Library reference number 12090
• James Lee of Kensington : purchased ; 1902
• Data sheet available
• This drawing is reproduced in Wheeler, A. and Smith, B, (eds.) The Art of the First Fleet and other early Australian Drawings. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. (Plate 173, p. 163.)