Brown snake
Date
1731
Creator
Mark Catesby (1683-1749, British), Naturalist
Object type
Library reference
18894
Material
Technique
Subject
Content object
Description
Zoological study of a brown snake, Storeria dekayi, referred to here as Anguis minor fuscus maculatus. Shown twined around an unidentified plant root, alongside a coral bean Erythrina herbacea specimen.
Inscribed below: 'Corallodendron &c Anguis &c'
Written in the associated description: 'These are always small, seldom appear above Ground, but are dug up and found twisting about the Roots of Shrubs and other Plants.'
Plate 49 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. Travelling under the auspices of the Royal Society, Catesby recorded the earliest western scientific descriptions of the flora and fauna of the ‘New World’. He was the first naturalist to use folio-sized colour plates in a natural history book, and etched the copper plates himself before hand-colouring each individual print with watercolours.
Inscribed below: 'Corallodendron &c Anguis &c'
Written in the associated description: 'These are always small, seldom appear above Ground, but are dug up and found twisting about the Roots of Shrubs and other Plants.'
Plate 49 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. Travelling under the auspices of the Royal Society, Catesby recorded the earliest western scientific descriptions of the flora and fauna of the ‘New World’. He was the first naturalist to use folio-sized colour plates in a natural history book, and etched the copper plates himself before hand-colouring each individual print with watercolours.