Pit viper
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
Zoological study of a pit viper, Agkistrodon piscivorus, referred to here as Vipera aquatica, a semiaquatic viper native to the southeastern United States. Shown as if moving through a fetter bush Leucothoe racemosa specimen.
Inscribed below: 'Frutex &c Vipera acquatica'
Written in the associated description: 'In Summer great Numbers of these Serpents are seen lying on the Branches of Trees hanging over Rivers, from which at the Approach of a Boat, they drop into the Water, and often into the Boat on the Men's Heads: They lie in this Manner to surprise either Birds or Fish, after these ast they plunge, and pursue them with great Swiftness'.
Plate 43 from volume II 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.
Inscribed below: 'Frutex &c Vipera acquatica'
Written in the associated description: 'In Summer great Numbers of these Serpents are seen lying on the Branches of Trees hanging over Rivers, from which at the Approach of a Boat, they drop into the Water, and often into the Boat on the Men's Heads: They lie in this Manner to surprise either Birds or Fish, after these ast they plunge, and pursue them with great Swiftness'.
Plate 43 from volume II 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