First Fleet artwork collection

Bird in profile, facing to the left. It is depicted perched on a branch against a plain background. The bird has a black band across the eye which extends down the back of the neck and across the breast, between the white throat and belly. The upper parts are predominantly shades of brown and chestnut, with a black stripe above the eye. The drawing is framed by a pencil border and annotated in ink and pencil.

• Thomas Watling]
• The drawing is annotated in ink at bottom "Half the Natural size, the only one of the kind ever seen at Port Jackson".
• The drawing is signed "T. Watling, delt.", but is undated.
• The drawing is inscribed in ink at top right with the number "249.". 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 "+" and "Crescent Plover La MS var of Ring Plover?". This has been copied in ink at bottom, "Crescent Plover Latham MS, a variety of 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 drawing is inscribed in pencil at top "Lambert Drawing III. 27". 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 12320
• 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).