The Ellis bird drawings: addendum

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XII, Issue 1, 1 May 1979, Page 45

The Ellis bird drawings: addendum

DAVID G. MEDWAY

Further examination of the Ellis bird drawings has resulted in the following findings additional to those published in the Turnbull Library Record 10:2 (October 1977) 23—27: folio 33 (reproduced before as Plate X). The bird identified as the Red-necked or Northern Phalarope Lobipes lobatus is in fact the Grey Phalarope Phalaropusfulicarius. This species is not represented among the London Ellis bird drawings. folio 34 (see detail below). The bird identified as the Herring Gull Larus argentatus is the Red-legged Kittiwake Rissa brevirostris . This species breeds on the Komandorskie and Pribilof Islands and winters in the Bering Sea. There was ample opportunity to collect a specimen while the third voyage ships were in that region in 1778 and 1779. This species is not represented among the London drawings. FOLIO 40 (reproduced before as Plate IX). The dead bird can now be identified as the Virginia Rail Rallus limicola which occurs from southern Canada to the Strait of Magellan. The drawing was in all probability based on the ‘bird of the Snipe kind’ which Ellis recorded was brought for sale by the natives at Nootka Sound in April 1778. 1 This species is not represented among the London drawings.

REFERENCE 1 William Ellis, An Authentic Narrative of a Voyage Performed by Captain Cook and Captain Clerke, in His Majesty’s Ships Resolution and Discovery ... (2 vols., London, 1782) I, p. 221.