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Natural history

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"Collared Kingfisher"
Artist: Port Jackson Painter
Created: [between 1788 and 1797]
Dimensions: 25.3 x 16.7 cm
Reference: Watling Drawing - no. 161

 
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Bird seen in frontal view with the body turned slightly to the right, and the head seen in profile. The bird is perched on a tree stump, with a riverbank or shoreline and water at its base, but set against an otherwise plain background. The bird's head is black with a white strip from behind the eye towards the neck, and a brown patch in front of the eye. The throat and underparts are off-white to yellow. The wings and back are blue, and the relatively short tail grey. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

 
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  • Port Jackson Painter]
  • The drawing is annotated in ink at bottom "Natural size,".
  • The drawing is unsigned and undated.
  • The drawing is inscribed in ink at top right with the number "80.". This refers to the catalogue list compiled by John Latham c. 1801 which was acquired with the drawings, and is filed with them at the end of the Watling Drawings series.
  • The drawing is annotated in pencil at top "Collared Kingfisher var? Syn. 2. 623". This has been copied in ink at bottom, "Collared King fisher var. Lathams Syn .... 2. p.263". The page reference is to Latham's Second Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds (1802).
  • This bird was more recently identified as the Sacred Kingfisher, Halcyon sanctus in Hindwood K. A. (1970). ITIS lists the current preferred taxonomic name for this species as Todirhamphus sanctus.
  • 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 12161
  • James Lee of Kensington : purchased ; 1902
  • Data sheet available
  • Latham, John. Supplement II to the General Synopsis of Birds. London: Leigh, Sotheby, 1802.
  • Hindwood K. A. 'The "Watling" drawings with incidental notes on the "Lambert" and the "Latham" drawings', Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales for the years 1968-69 (1970).