254 



JOTTKNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XIX. 



British lady, and was wont to live many months and indeed 

 whole years in England. 



Baronet Joseph Banks, the present president of the Royal 

 Society of Sciences in London,* saw these pictures with Mr. Loten, 

 and with the permission of the owner caused several of them to be 

 copied. Soon afterwards however he resolved, by the advice of 

 his friend Mr. Thomas Pennant, with the concurrence of Mr. 

 Loten, to have a selection of these pictures well engraved in copper 

 at their own joint expense. This was a singularly fortunate oc- 

 currence, for when Mr. Loten subsequently sent these paintings 

 by ship to Holland, the ship was wrecked, and all the paintings 

 were lost. 



Fifteen copperplates had already been engraved, and twelve 

 of them described by Mr. Pennant from Mr. Loten's written notes, 

 when Mr. Banks in the year 1768 left for the South Seas, and began 

 with Captain Cook the voyage round the world. Owing to my 

 presence in England I was commissioned to translate Mr. Pen- 

 nant's descriptions into French, which commission I undertook 

 with much readiness and great care. Only as Mr. Pennant 

 trusted an illiterate unknown French teacher more than me, the 

 French, which was full of errors, was printed in England to the 

 first twelve copperplates. After Mr. Banks had returned from 

 his long voyage, he with Messrs. Loten and Pennant presented me, 

 for the trouble I had had over the translation, with the ownership 

 of the copperplates, together with the descriptions of them. 



The statements made by Forster in the above extract are 

 largely borne out by Pennant, who, in the " advertisement "f 

 prefixed to the second edition (1790) of his Indian Zoology, 

 says : — 



This work, or rather fragment, was begun in the year 17694 

 The descriptive part fell to my share : the expense of the plates 

 was divided between Mr. Banks, now Sir Joseph Banks, Baronet ; 



* Banks was chosen as president of the Royal Society in 1778, and 

 was created a baronet in 1781. 



f Dated 1st March, 1791, showing that the work was published later 

 than the title-page (an engraved one by Mazell) states. This is con- 

 firmed by what Pennant himself says in his Lit. Life p. 40. 



% It must have been in the early part of 1768 (see Forster's statement 

 supra). In his Catalogue of My Works (1786) Pennant says : " In 1761, 

 my Indian Zoology in folio appeared." (Then follow some of the de- 

 tails given above.) The date here given is, however, an obvious error, 

 since, in his Lit. Life (9-10) Pennant distinctly assigns the work to 1769, 



