Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.18355

    ‘The black and white falcon’

    Date
    1790
    Creator
    Peter Mazell (1721, Irish) , Engraver
    Object type
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (page): 245mm
    width (page): 185mm
    height (print): 195mm
    width (print): 155mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > bird
    Description
    Ornithological study of a pied falconet, Microhierax melanoleucos, referred to here as Falco melanoleucos. Shown in left profile perched on a branch bearing green leaves and fruit. Behind, a green landscape with palm trees is visible.

    Inscribed below: ‘P Mazell Sculp. THE BLACK & WHITE FALCON’

    Written in the associated description: ‘The bill is black: the irides of a reddish yellow: the orbits marked with white specks. The head, neck, back, scapulars, quil-feathers, and some of the middle coverts, those of the tail, and the tail itself, the breast and belly, are of a pure white.’

    Plate 2 from Thomas Pennant’s Indian Zoology (London, 1790), printed by Henry Hughs for Robert Faulder.

    Thomas Pennant (1726–1798), British naturalist, traveller, and writer, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767. Best known for his published accounts of tours throughout the British Isles. He never travelled outside of Europe and his account of Indian Zoology was gleamed from drawings brought back by Joan Gideon Loten (1710-1789), a servant in the colonies of the Dutch East India Company and 29th Governor of Sri Lanka, then Ceylon.
    Related fellows
    Thomas Pennant (1726 - 1798, Welsh) , Naturalist
    Joan Gideon Loten (1710 - 1789) , Colonial administrator
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Asia
          > Sri Lanka
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