Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.18366

    'Black back'd goose'

    Date
    1790
    Creator
    Peter Mazell (1721, Irish) , Engraver
    Object type
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (page): 185mm
    width (page): 245mm
    height (print): 155mm
    width (print): 195mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > bird
    Description
    Ornithological study of a knob-billed duck, Sarkidiornis melanotos, referred to here as Anser melanotos. Shown in left profile, on a grassy mound, surrounded by water.

    Inscribed below: 'P Mazell Sculp. BLACK BACK'D GOOSE'

    Written in the associated description: 'The species of goose we now describe, is extremely common in Ceylon [Sri Lanka], and is equal in size to our wild goose: the bill is long, and black; at the base is a knob, which in old birds is very large.'

    Plate 13 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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