First Fleet artwork collection

Bird, with the body facing to the left and the head turned in profile to the right, perched on a tree stump with green area at its base, set against an otherwise plain background. The head, breast and belly are black. The back, wings and tail are patterned in shades of ochre, brown, grey and black. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

• Port Jackson Painter]
• The drawing is annotated in ink at lower right "one half the Natural size. Native name Tem-minck The New South Wales Pheasant. The only one seen as yet."
• The drawing is unsigned and undated.
• The drawing is annotated in pencil at top "Pheasant Cuckoo Syn Sup ii. 137". This has been copied in ink at lower right, "Pheasant Cuckoo. Lathams Syn Suppt 2.p.137". The page reference is to Latham's Second Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds (1802).
• This bird was more recently identified as the Pheasant Coucal, Centropus phasianinus in Hindwood K. A. (1970).
• The drawing is annotated in pencil at top "Lambert Drawing I. 36". 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 alongside the drawing at lower right, 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 12155
• 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).