First Fleet artwork collection

Bird in profile, facing to the left, perched on a branch against a plain background. The bird is predominantly brown overlaid with black marks and striations, but paler underneath where the colour is overlaid with white-grey. The outer feathers of the tail are also white-grey. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

• Thomas Watling]
• The drawing is annotated in ink at lower left "two thirds of the natural size", and below, in what appears to be Watling's copperplate hand, "The Lark of New South Wales".
• The drawing is signed "T. Watling, delt.", but is undated.
• The drawing is inscribed in ink at top right with the number "192.". 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 Lark, Female? La MS". This has been copied in ink at lower left, "New Holland Lark 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 Australasian Pipit, Anthus Novaeseelandiae 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 12269
• James Lee of Kensington : purchased ; 1902
• Data sheet available.
• 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).