First Fleet artwork collection

Bird in profile, facing to the left. It is depicted perched on a disproportionately small tree, in front of a landscape of water and hills. The bird is painted predominantly in shades of grey, darker around the face, throat and rump, and with darker markings on the wing and tail. 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 in what appears to be Watling's copperplate hand, "New So: Wales - About 1/4 the Natural size.".
• The drawing is signed to the right above the annotations "Thomas Watling, delt. -", but is undated.
• The drawing is inscribed in ink at top right with the number "226.". 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 "Pale Pigeon. Syn. Sup. 2. 270". This has been copied in ink at bottom, "Pale Pidgeon. Latham Syn syppt 2. p. 270". The page reference is to Latham's Second Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds (1802).
• This bird was more recently identified as the Pallid Cuckoo, Cuculus pallidus in Hindwood K. A. (1970).
• The drawing is annotated in pencil at top "Lambert Drawing III 48.". This refers to a related set of drawings from the collections of the 13th Earl of Derby, held in the Library at Knowsley Hall, Lancashire.
• A separate label is attached to the mount beneath the drawing. It is inscribed in pencil "Type".
• 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 12300
• 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).
• This drawing is reproduced in Wheeler, A. and Smith, B, The Art of the First Fleet and other early Australian Drawings. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. (Plate 206, p. 193).