First Fleet artwork collection

Bird in profile, facing to the left. It is depicted standing on a brown rock in a landscape with water. The bird is predominantly brown with paler underparts, overlaid with markings of different shades. The drawing is framed by a pencil border.

• Thomas Watling]
• The drawing is annotated in ink at bottom in what appears to be Watling's copperplate hand "One fifth of the Natural Size -".
• The drawing is signed at lower right "T. Watling, delt.", but is undated.
• The drawing is inscribed in ink at top right with the number "240.". 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 "New Holland Curlew. La. MS". This has been copied in ink at bottom, "New Holland Curlew. Latham MS". "Latham MS" refers to the manuscript catalogue list compiled by John Latham (see note above).
• This bird was more recently identified as the Bar-tailed Godwit, Limosa lapponica in Hindwood K. A. (1970).
• 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 12312
• 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).