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Natural history

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"Short-winged Thrush"
Artist: Port Jackson Painter
Created: [between 1788 and 1797]
Dimensions: 21.1 x 21.2 cm
Reference: Watling Drawing - no. 233

 
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Bird in profile, facing to the left. It is perched on an irregularly shaped grey rock, on a green - yellow base. The bird is predominantly pale brown overlaid with darker hatched lines, and is slightly greyer on its underparts with darker markings on its breast. 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. This is a ground Bird with very small wings, and of very short flight".
  • The drawing is unsigned and undated.
  • The drawing is annotated in pencil at top right with the number "154.". 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 "Short-winged Thrush Sup. 2. 187.". This has been copied in ink at bottom, "Short winged Thrush. Latham Syn Suppt 2. p. 187.". The page reference is to Latham's Second Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds (1802).
  • This bird was more recently identified as the Eastern Bristle-bird, Dasyornis brachypterus in Hindwood K. A. (1970).
  • The drawing is annotated in pencil at top "Lambert Drawing II. 32.". 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. 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 12233
  • 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 202, p. 189).