President' s Address. 93 



of which body he was an active member. These ' Drawings ' 

 consist of coloured or pencil sketches by the artists who 

 accompanied Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks on their 

 voyages round the world. Sydney Parkinson went on the first 

 voyage, and his sketches are contained in a thin folio volume. 

 He unfortunately died during the expedition. The two Forsters, 

 Johann Reinhold and his son Greorg Adam, went with 

 Captain Cook on his second voyage, and the large folio volume 

 of their paintings and pencil drawings is the most important 

 of the three collections presented to the Museum by Sir Joseph 

 Banks. The third set of i Drawings ' is that of W. W. Ellis, 

 who was the artist on Captain Cook's third circumnavigating 

 voyage. 



It is very evident from an examination of these drawings, 

 that many were merely traced in outline, with the colours of 

 the feet and bill painted on the spot, while the general colora- 

 tion was left to be filled in later on from the skins of the birds, 

 probably after the return to England. This was not done in 

 many cases, and the species are often impossible to identify 

 with certainty. 



The fate of the actual specimens preserved on the three 

 voyages is also difficult to trace. At the time that Latham 

 wrote his ' General Synopsis of Birds' (1781 — 1785), many 

 of the specimens are mentioned as being in the Museum of 

 Sir Ashton Lever, and in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks. 

 The latter does not seem to have given many of the birds to 

 the British Museum, but a number passed into the Bullock 

 Museum, and were dispersed at the sale of this collection. A 

 good many were then bought by Lord Stanley and are now in 

 the Liverpool Museum, but a great number of these priceless 

 specimens went abroad. John Reinhold Forster seems to 

 have prepared an account of the birds observed by him, but 

 it remained unpublished till the year 1844, when his 

 ' Descriptiones Animalium,' was edited by Prof. H. Lichten- 

 stein. 



In my room in the Natural History Museum I have laid 

 out for inspection by Members of the Congress a further 

 collection of c Drawings,' which were acquired by the Trustees 

 in 1902. These consist of a large volume of paintings by 



