Blue-winged teal
Date
1731
Creator
Mark Catesby (1683 - 1749, British) , Naturalist
Object type
Library reference
18894
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 265mm
width (print): 355mm
width (print): 355mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Ornithological study of a blue-winged teal, Spatula discors, referred to here as Querquidula Americana fusca. It is shown in right profile, on a rocky mound, stooping to reach the water below. It is found in North America, where it breeds from Alaska to Nova Scotia, and south to northern Texas.
Signed and inscribed below: ‘Querquedula &c.’
Written in the associated description: ‘In August these Birds come in great plenty to Carolina, and continue till the middle of October, at which time the Rice is gather’d in, on which they feed. In Virginia, where no Rice grows, they feed on a kind of Wild Oate growing in the Marshes, and in both places they become extremely fat.’
Plate 99 from volume I of Mark Catesby’s The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731).
Mark Catesby (1683-1749), British naturalist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1733.
Signed and inscribed below: ‘Querquedula &c.’
Written in the associated description: ‘In August these Birds come in great plenty to Carolina, and continue till the middle of October, at which time the Rice is gather’d in, on which they feed. In Virginia, where no Rice grows, they feed on a kind of Wild Oate growing in the Marshes, and in both places they become extremely fat.’
Plate 99 from volume I of Mark Catesby’s The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (London, 1731).
Mark Catesby (1683-1749), British naturalist 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 whom 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 whom 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