Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10470
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The 'yellow belly’d wood-pecker' and the 'smallest spotted wood-pecker'
Date
1731
Creator
Mark Catesby (1683 - 1749, British) , Naturalist
Object type
Library reference
18894
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 255mm
width (print): 350mm
width (print): 350mm
Subject
Content object
Description
‘Picus varius minor, ventre luteo’, the yellow belly’d wood-pecker, and ‘Picus varius minimus’, the smallest spotted wood-pecker, perched on a white oak. The leaves of ‘Quercus alba virginiana’, the white oak, and ‘Quercus caroliniensis virentibus venis muricata’, the white oak with pointed notches, are also shown for comparison (Catesby’s identifications; modern scientific names: Sphyrapicus varius, the yellow-bellied sapsucker; Picoides pubescens, the downy woodpecker; Quercus alba, the white oak; Quercus falcata, the southern red oak).
Plate 21 from volume I of The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, by Mark Catesby (London, 1731).
Mark Catesby was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1733.
Plate 21 from volume I of The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, by Mark Catesby (London, 1731).
Mark Catesby was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1733.
Object history
The Natural History was originally published in 10 parts, intended to be bound in 2 volumes. It was the earliest western scientific description of the flora and fauna of North America, and its copper plates were etched and hand-coloured by Catesby himself.
Catesby’s trips to North America were funded by a group of sponsors, many of were colonial governors, charged with managing the British Empire’s territories, and their support of Catesby’s research can be read as an exercise in colonial control. As The Natural History’s parts were issued it also became important as a reference text to naturalists attempting to order the natural world according to the ambitious taxonomic systems that characterized the mid-18th century.
Catesby’s trips to North America were funded by a group of sponsors, many of were colonial governors, charged with managing the British Empire’s territories, and their support of Catesby’s research can be read as an exercise in colonial control. As The Natural History’s parts were issued it also became important as a reference text to naturalists attempting to order the natural world according to the ambitious taxonomic systems that characterized the mid-18th century.
Associated place