First Fleet artwork collection

Bird in profile, facing to the right. It is depicted perching on a tree stump with some vegetation at the base, with its wings slightly outstretched, against a plain background. The main part of the bird's body is predominantly brown, with a white throat and forehead. Except for a white patch on the wing, the tail and wings are darker, the brown overlaid with dark blue-black and some white detail. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

• Thomas Watling]
• The drawing is annotated in ink at bottom "This bird, about 1/2 the natural size, seem to possess in a great measure the qualities of the swallow. Its motions are amazing quick; eager of its prey, which it seizes with the rapidity of lightening. Its favourite food is a large locust which at this season is plentiful. It is strongly pounced (as a bird of prey) and has a broad, flat bile - the tail quills armed with spikes as fine as a needle. -".
• The drawing is signed in pale brown ink above the annotations "Thomas Watling delt:-", but is undated.
• The drawing is inscribed in ink at top right with the number "217.". 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 "Needle-tailed Swift. Sup. ii 259". This has been copied in ink at bottom, "Needle tailed Swift Latham Syn ii. p. 259.". The page reference is to Latham's Second Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds (1802).
• This bird was more recently identified as the Spine-tailed Swift, Hirundapus caudacutus in Hindwood K. A. (1970).
• The drawing is annotated in pencil "Lambert Drawing II. 88". 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 12292
• 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 204, p. 191).