Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.9981
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‘The Chinese Quail and the Guernsey Lizard’
Date
1755
Creator
George Edwards (1694 - 1773, British) , Ornithologist
Object type
Library reference
38029
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (print): 286mm
width (print): 220mm
width (print): 220mm
Subject
Content object
Description
Studies of a quail, probably the King Quail or Button Quail Coturnix chinensis, with a lizard from Surrey, possibly the Sand Lizard Lacerta agilis. Shown in a natural setting, the quail perched standing upon a stone.
Plate 247 from chapter 37 of Gleanings of natural history, exhibiting figures of quadrupeds, birds, insects, plants, &c..., by George Edwards, volume 1 (London, for the author, 1758). The author describes the bird and reptile within the text: “This bird is here figured of its natural bigness: it was etched on the copper-plate immediately from nature. I take it to be a cock bird...It was brought alive from Nanquin in China, by a captain in the East India Company’s service, who presented it to Mr. Leman, at the Cllege of Physicians, London. This gentleman, after it died, set it up in a glass-case very curiously and lent it to me to draw its figure...The Guernsey Lizard is drawn of its natural bigness...This was a male... A pair of these Lizards were brought to me alive, by a person who makes it his business to catch vipers, &c., who told me, they were taken at St. George’s Hill, near Cobham, in Surry. He says, they were propagated there from some of the same species brought by a gentleman a few years since from the Island of Guernsey.”
The plate is inscribed: “A Chinese Quail, and the Guernsey Lizard, etched directly from Nature, of the size of Life. G Edwards delin et sculp. AD.1755.”
Plate 247 from chapter 37 of Gleanings of natural history, exhibiting figures of quadrupeds, birds, insects, plants, &c..., by George Edwards, volume 1 (London, for the author, 1758). The author describes the bird and reptile within the text: “This bird is here figured of its natural bigness: it was etched on the copper-plate immediately from nature. I take it to be a cock bird...It was brought alive from Nanquin in China, by a captain in the East India Company’s service, who presented it to Mr. Leman, at the Cllege of Physicians, London. This gentleman, after it died, set it up in a glass-case very curiously and lent it to me to draw its figure...The Guernsey Lizard is drawn of its natural bigness...This was a male... A pair of these Lizards were brought to me alive, by a person who makes it his business to catch vipers, &c., who told me, they were taken at St. George’s Hill, near Cobham, in Surry. He says, they were propagated there from some of the same species brought by a gentleman a few years since from the Island of Guernsey.”
The plate is inscribed: “A Chinese Quail, and the Guernsey Lizard, etched directly from Nature, of the size of Life. G Edwards delin et sculp. AD.1755.”
Associated place