Acer palmatum, although there are more than 100 species of maple worldwide, only one species (Acer campestre) is native to the UK.

Skip to page content

Natural history

Image 64 of 508
  previous page next page

"Bold Vulture", Native name "Boo-ro-ma-rang"
Artist: Port Jackson Painter
Created: [between 1788 and 1797]
Dimensions: 31.7 x 21.8 cm
Reference: Watling drawing - no. 95

 
hide detailed image description

Bird with brown plumage and a white patch around the eye, facing to the right and holding a fish in its right foot. The bird is standing on a rock in front of an expanse of water with headlands to left and right, with sky forming the background to approximately three-quarters of the picture. There is a pencil border around the top and sides of the picture, with a "scale of feet" drawn in ink and wash at the bottom, below the annotations. The drawing is annotated in ink and pencil.

 
hide notes

  • Port Jackson Painter]
  • The drawing is annotated in ink at the bottom "Native name, Boo-ro-ma-rang. This Eagle, the Natives say kills the Pattigorang and sometimes attacks the Natives themselves." There is a "scale of feet" below the annotations. [Pattigorang = Kangaroo]
  • The drawing is unsigned and undated.
  • The drawing is annotated in ink in the top right hand corner with the number "1." 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 left "Bold Vulture, Syn suppt 2.p.10". This has been copied in ink at bottom "Bold Vulture Lathams Syn - suppt 2 p 10". The page reference is to Latham's Second Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds (1802).
  • This bird was more recently identified as a Wedge-tailed Eagle, Aquila audax, in Hindwood K. A. (1970).
  • The drawing is annotated in pencil at top left "Lambert Drawing I.43". 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.
  • 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 12095
  • 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).