Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.18367

    'Spotted bill duck'

    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 an Indian spotted bill duck, Anas poecilorhyncha, referred to here as Anas poikilorhynchus. Shown in right profile, standing on a grassy plain by the water's edge.

    Inscribed below: P Mazell Sculp. SPOTTED BILL DUCK'

    Written in the associated description: 'The bill of this species is black, tipt with yellow, and marked on each side of the base with a red spot: a white line passes from thence to and beyond the eye.'

    Plate 14 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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