SEPTEMBER REVELRY 35 



and immediately all our little world seemed waiting 

 for the voices of these songsters. 



It is, I suppose, the influence of association and 

 reminiscence that makes me appreciate the same 

 bird-songs far less when I listen to them in the 

 north of Australia at other times of the year. To 

 me they are birds of September, the elves of Spring, 

 and I have no desire to hear them in a strange set- 

 ting. The strong carol of the Rufous Song-Lark I 

 have heard ringing out over the wide plains of 

 north-western Queensland in early Autumn, but 

 the song then had not the charm of kindred bird- 

 voices which, like the call of Wordsworth's Cuckoo, 



course of some "Notes on Australian Artists," read before the 

 RoyaJ Australian Historical Society (Journ. and Proc., Vol. 5, 

 Part 5, 1919), Mr. William Dixon lays it down that Thomas 

 Watling, according to his own story, was convicted by a Scotch 

 jury and sentenced to transportation. He was sent out in the 

 Pitt, which sailed from England early in July, 1791. He 

 escaped at the Cape, was re-captured after about a month, 

 and was kept in prison for seven months waiting for a ship. 

 Finally, he was shipped for "New Holland" on the Royal 

 Admiral, which left the Cape on August 30, 1792, and arrived 

 in Sydney on October 7 of the same year. Watling records 



that his employment was "painting for J. W , Esq., the 



nondescript productions of the country . . . .," adding near 

 the end of the letter: ". . . . My present position is chiefly 

 owing to the low revenge of a certain military character, now 



high in office. . . ." The "J. W. , Esq.," referred to is 



doubtleps John White, Surgeon-General to the Port Jackson 

 settlement. White's Journal was printed in 1790, and all the 

 plates are dated December 29, 1789. Accordingly, if Mr. 

 Dixon's dates are correct, the Museum was wrong in stating 

 that Watling executed some of the drawings in White's 

 Journal just as it appears to have been wrong in stating that 

 he was sent out by James Lee. It seems certain, however, 

 that Watling executed many delineations (both paintings and 

 roug-h sketches) of Australian birds and flowers; and, taking 

 the English and Australian evidence in conjunction, we arrive 

 at the conclusion that many of our best-known birds were 

 first named from the paintings of a talented convict. 



