Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.18361

    ‘The black cap’d pigeon’

    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 an unknown species of bird, possibly a common emerald dove, Chalcophaps indica, referred to here as Columba melanocephala. It appears to be dead, lying on top of a block. The main body is a deep green, the neck and head pale with a black beak and cap.

    Inscribed below: ‘P Mazell Sculp. THE BLACK CAP’D PIGEON’

    Written in the associated text: ‘It was found on the ground in the isle of Java, having dropped down dead in one of those hot days that are known only in the torrid zone, when the fowls of the air often perish, unable to respire, when lions, leopards, and wolves, immerge themselves up to their nostrils in the water, to preserve themselves from the scorching sun’.

    c

    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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