Remarks on a Collection of Australian Drawings. 333 



XLVII. — Remarks on a Collection of Australian Drawings of 

 Birds, the Property of the Earl of Derby. By H. E. Strick- 

 land, Esq., M.A. 



In the March Number of the c Annals of Nat. Hist.' Mr. G. R. 

 Gray has given a list of certain Australian birds long since 

 described by Latham, but which, from the brevity and incom- 

 pleteness of that author's descriptions, have remained till now 

 in much obscurity. By the aid of the original drawings, from 

 which alone Latham compiled his descriptions, Mr. Gray has 

 been enabled to refer the greater part of these hitherto doubtful 

 species to their true place in the modern system, and by ap- 

 plying the (i law of priority" to their specific names has done 

 an act of justice to the father of British ornithologists. 



Having had the pleasure of co-operating with Mr. Gray 

 in comparing these drawings with specimens in the British 

 Museum, and having then acquiesced in most of the conclu- 

 sions to which he arrived, I should not have now referred to 

 them, were it not that the Earl of Derby has kindly permitted 

 me to take these drawings to my own residence, and by a 

 careful comparison of them with specimens in my collection, 

 I have obtained a few additional results. 



Mr. Gould has also examined these drawings with much 

 attention, and has communicated his remarks upon them, 

 which, with his permission, I have inserted in the present no- 

 tice, distinguishing them by the initials J. G. 



These water-colour drawings, comprised in three folio vo- 

 lumes, are 225 in number, the first being a landscape in Nor- 

 folk Island, the next ten are mammalia, and the rest birds. 

 There is no title-page, date or artist's name, but the backs are 

 lettered " New South Wales Drawings," and there is every 

 reason to believe that the whole of them were made in the 

 Australian regions. It has been supposed that the artist was 

 John White, author of the ' Voyage to New South Wales,' 4 to, 

 London, 1790, soon after which date they came into posses- 

 sion of Mr. A. B. Lambert. Mr. Gould however remarks, 

 f* this is probably a mistake ; they were perhaps made by 

 some convict. Mr. Lambert told Mr. Prince, upon showing 

 him the drawings some time before his death, that they were 

 made by an artist in the colony for one of the governors, by 

 whom they were presented to Mr. Lambert. I am strengthened 

 in this opinion by observing among them many of the deni- 

 zens of the penal settlement of Norfolk Island, a part never I 

 believe visited by White." 



In 1800 they were borrowed by Dr. Latham, as appears 

 from an autograph letter from him to Mr. Lambert, inserted 



