Vol. XX. J Ifoyiil Auslyahni'iH Uriiilholosii>ls' Union. 145 



(did Pyaccctliii'^s Royal A iislrnliiiii Hisl. Soc, v., part 5, Sydney, 

 KjKj), il is slaU'd': -" Thoinas Watling, according to liis own 

 story, was convicted by a Scotch jury and sentenced to trans- 

 portation. He was sent out in tlic Pitt, which sailed from England 

 early in July, 1791. He escaped at the Cape, was recaptured after 

 a month, and kept in prison for seven months waiting a ship. 

 He was sent on in the Koyal Admiral, which left the Cape on joth 

 August, i7()2, and arrived in Sydney 7th October, 1792;" 

 Watling himself wrote afterwards, presumably to some friend in 



England: — "My employment is painting for J. W , Esqre., 



the nondescript production of the country." 



Between three and four years after Watling's enforced arrival 

 at Sydney, or on i6th January, 1796, there was a theatrical 

 performance given at The Cove, and no doubt a person of Watling's 

 artistic temperament would be in the limited compan\-. The 

 celebrated " prologue " included the couplet — 



" True patriots we, for be it understood 



We left our country for our country's good." 



Now, I am going to take this utterance as a prophecy hterally 

 fulfilled in our days so far as Wathng is concerned, and to show 

 what he has done " for his country's good " in the earUest days 

 of ornithology, particularly as the astute Dr. John Latham used 

 (without stating where he obtained his originals) the batch of 

 "\\'atling drawings, so many of which became " types " for 

 Latham's species of Austrahan birds, and consequently the names 

 in use to-day in our " Check-hst." Of course, in the hmited 

 time at our disposal I cannot mention every one, but will cull a 

 few observations from a volume by Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe on 

 " Birds of the British Museum,"* for which I am indebted for 

 loan by our ever-faithful friend and member, Mr. D. Le Souef. 



Dr. Sharpe, in his opening remarks, writes : — " Of additional 

 interest to Latham's published works, which give us an idea of 

 the contents of the bird-cases in the British Museum in the 

 latter half of the i8th century, is the naming of certain Australian 

 birds in the ' Supplements ' to *the ' Synopsis ' and to the 

 ' Index Ornithologicus.' Up to the present time it has never been 

 known where Latham obtained the material for describing so many 

 Australian — or, as they were then called, ' New Holland ' — birds. 



" In 1902 the Museum acquired from Mr. James Lee, a grandson 

 of the famous horticulturist of Hammersmith, a large volume of 

 paintings executed for the latter by one of his collectors, Thomas 

 Watling, between 1788 and 1792. These drawings had evidently 

 been shown to Latham, who named most of the birds, and seems to 

 have referred to these pictures as ' Mr. Lambert's drawings.' 

 They do not seem, however, to have been Lambert's property 

 at any time." 



Dr. Sharpe fiulluT nicnli(iiis th;il ;l Air. James Brillcu, wlio 



* History of the collections containetl in the Natural 1 listory Department 

 of the British Museum (for review see Emu, vol. vii., p. 193). 



10 



