First Fleet artwork collection

Bird in profile, facing to the left. It is depicted standing on a brown outcrop in front of a landscape of hills and trees, painted in pale blue and brown. The upper parts of the bird are predominantly shades of brown, with a black stripe over the eye and a white stripe above it. The underparts are white-grey, with a black crescent shaped band across the breast. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

• Thomas Watling]
• The drawing is annotated in ink at bottom in what appears to be Watling's copperplate hand "about the Natural size".
• The drawing is signed "Thos. Watling, delt.", but is undated.
• The drawing is inscribed in ink at top right with the number "250.". 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 "Crescent Plover - La MS. var.y of Ring Plover?". This has been copied in ink at bottom, "Crescent Plover Latham MS perhaps a variety of the Ring Plover.". "Latham MS" refers to the manuscript catalogue list compiled by John Latham (see note above).
• This bird was more recently identified as the Black-fronted Dotterel, Charadrius melanops 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 12321
• 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).