| 
Mark Catesby was born in rural Sudbury, England, and from an early age had an “Inclination...to search after Plants and other productions of Nature.” Although not wealthy, Catesby was able to sail to Virginia in 1712, and over the next seven years, he traveled as far as the Blue Ridge Mountains, Bermuda, and Jamaica, making studies of the different plants, animals and birds.
Back in England, his scholarship and ability impressed William Sherard, who would found the first chair of botany at Oxford, and Sir Hans Sloane, one of the founders of the British Museum. These prominent benefactors sponsored Catesby on a second, extended study trip (1722-1726) to the Carolinas, Florida and the Bahamas.
Based on his research, Catesby then wrote, illustrated, engraved and hand-colored the magisterial Natural History of the Carolinas in two volumes (1731 and 1743, Appendix, 1748), one of the earliest natural history surveys of the American colonies.
|
|
Mark Catesby (1683-1749)
Heath Hen, Urogallus Minor (Le Cocq de bois d’Amerique) and Meadia
Hand-tinted engraving
The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands: Containing the Figures of Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Serpents, Insects, and Plants…
|
|
In the Natural History Catesby listed English, Latin and Indian names (if known) of flora and fauna, while the main text was published in side-by-side English and French.
Catesby was a careful observer, if not a particularly good artist, and he worked hard to depict animals within their ecology, as well as accurately rendering color, texture, motion, and natural postures. Like the later John James Audubon (1785-1851), Catesby focused much of his illustrations on birds, but the Natural History also has mammals, fish, plants, reptiles, amphibians, and insects.
The 1748 Appendix from the year before Catesby’s death is the source of the Heath Hen print shown here. The heath hen (T. c. cupido), extinct since 1932, was the easternmost subspecies of the greater prairie chicken; the other two subspecies are the greater prairie chicken (T. c. pinnatus) of Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota, and the Attwater’s prairie chicken (T. c. attwateri), now only found in a small part of south-east Texas.
There is also a Texas A&M University connection to this print. The “Small Upland-bird Research Facility” (SURF) of the university is one of four Texas centers for the captive breeding of the Attwater’s prairie chicken. There were an estimated 1 million Attwater’s: the total population is now a few hundred, so breeding at SURF and three other sites in Texas is critical for survival of the species. |
The descriptive page from the Appendix was attached at some point to the back of this frame. In his description, Catesby is particularly interested in the two small feathers on the side of the head:
These little wings (if so they may be called) were fixed to the neck in such a manner, that the Bird had the power of contracting and dilating them. When disturbed, it would spread these little wings horizontally ; at other times, it would let them fall on each side of the Neck. The Hen had not these neck-feathers ; except which, there appeared very little difference between this and the Cock. From the structure and resemblance of these neck-feathers to real wings, they may possibly assist the Bird in running or flying, or both, especially as the wings are short in proportion to its heavy body.
Surprisingly, Catesby did not draw the Heath Hen when he was in the Americas. Instead:
Some of these Birds, in the year 1743, I saw at the right honourable the Earl of Wilmington’s at Chiswick, who told me they were natives of America, but from what particular part they came his Lordship knew not.
Chiswick is on the River Thames, west of London. Somehow, the earl had secured these shy, hard to propagate birds, with at least one cock and one hen. Given how specialized prairie chickens are in habitat, diet, and breeding, one wonders how the birds were maintained in England, far from the tall grass prairies of their home world.
The illustrated flowering plant was also seen by Catesby in England, not America. He writes:
It flowered in Mr. Collinson’s garden at Peckham in September 1744, from seeds sent him by Mr. Bartram, who gathered them from beyond the Apalatchian mountains, which lie parallel with Virginia. The seeds were contained in a long membranous capsula, which opens into four parts and discharges its very small seeds.
To this new Genus of Plants I have given the name of the learned Dr. Richard Mead, Physician to His Majesty, and F.R.S. in gratitude for his zealous patronage of Arts and Science in general, and in particular for his generous alliance towards carrying the original design of this work into execution.
Peckham, where Catesby saw the plant, is in south-west London. Although Catesby does not say, greenhouses were common by the 1700s, and Mr. Collinson could have been raising his rare and unusual American plants in such a greenhouse.
Dr. Richard Mead (1673-1754) was a famous medical doctor, man of science and art collector, whose patients included Samuel Johnson, Kings George I and George II, and Isaac Newton.
Mark Catesby is one of an ongoing line of English explorers-naturalists-travelers. From Catesby, to Charles Darwin’s famous voyage on the Beagle (1831-1836), to Thomas Cook, the “willing and devoted servant of the traveling public” and inventor of the first traveler’s check, the British explored, and tried to understand, the world around them.
|
|
|
|
