Southern flying squirrel
Date
1731
Creator
Mark Catesby (1683 - 1749, British) , Naturalist
Object type
Library reference
18894
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 355mm
width (print): 265mm
width (print): 265mm
Subject
Description
Zoological study of a Southern flying squirrel, Glaucomys volans, referred to here as Sciurus volans, shown face on, eating a fruit from the American persimmon plant Diospyros virginiana.
Signed and inscribed: 'Sciurus volans Guajacana'
Written in the associated text: 'These Squirrels have not membranous Wings like those of a Bat, whereby they can fly to any great Distance, but have only Membranes, covered with their Furr, which grow along their Sides, and are attached to their Legs, by which they can expand them, and so help themselves in leaping from one Tree to another'.
Plate 76 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.
Signed and inscribed: 'Sciurus volans Guajacana'
Written in the associated text: 'These Squirrels have not membranous Wings like those of a Bat, whereby they can fly to any great Distance, but have only Membranes, covered with their Furr, which grow along their Sides, and are attached to their Legs, by which they can expand them, and so help themselves in leaping from one Tree to another'.
Plate 76 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