First Fleet artwork collection

Bird in profile, facing to the left, perched on a tree stump against a plain background. The bird is predominantly black, with a grey patch around the eye, yellow markings on the wing and yellow tail feathers. The bill is curved, with a pink 'brush' tongue protruding from it. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

• Thomas Watling]
• The drawing is annotated in ink at centre bottom "About 1/2 the Natural size", and in paler brown ink, "The light tint round the eye is not plumage, but a kind of fleshy excrescence, resembling, in sub_ _stance the Gills of a Cock or hen._"
• The drawing is signed below the tree stump "Thomas Watling delt.", but is undated.
• The drawing is inscribed at top right with the number "93.". 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 "Black & yellow Bee eater Sup 2. 154". This has been copied in ink at centre bottom, "Black & yellow Bee eater Latham Syn Suppt 2.p.154" . The page reference is to Latham's Second Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds (1802).
• This bird was more recently identified as the Regent Honeyeater Xanthomyza phrygia 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 12173
• 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).