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Overview
Dr John Latham was England's foremost ornithologist in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, whose reputation was based on the remarkable achievement of having recorded some 3000 bird species by 1800. Latham was a member of the Royal Society, and a prominent figure in the formation of the Linnean Society. He was a close associate of such contemporary leading scientific figures as Sir Joseph Banks, Thomas Pennant and Sir Ashton Lever, with whom he swapped specimens and reports of the latest ornithological discoveries. Much of his work relating to birds from Aotearoa and the Pacific was based on specimens collected on Cooks voyages between 1769 and 1779.
Latham's first ornithological work was A General Synopsis of Birds (1781-85) which included 106 illustrations by the author, and described many new species Latham had discovered in both private and public collections. However, as he had not attached significance to naming those species he described, he published Index Ornithologicus in 1790 in which he specified a binomial name to attempt to secure the honour of originating a species' scientific name. This was followed by Supplementum Indicis Ornithologici in 1801, which has become the authority for around 70 species of birds, most from Australasia. For this reason, his work holds importance in this part of the world. In his eighties, he revisited his magnum opus, publishing an expanded version of A General Synopsis of Birds in eleven parts titled A General History of Birds between 1821 and 1828.
Latham worked from drawings or skins to create his illustrations which demostrate the characteristics of such works of art - paired or single birds, perched on boughs, somewhat stilted in composition, and seldom showing the plumage to full effect. The etched plates were hand-coloured, according to the associated description. Of the Wattled Starlings, now known as Saddleback or Tieke, Philesturnus carunculatus, Latham wrote (note Latham used of 'f' in place of 's' - this has been reversed here to enable ease of reading):
"Size of our Starling: length nearly ten inches. The bill rather long, and somewhat bent; it is sharp at the tip, but a trifle flatted; the colour is black, tinged with blue towards the base: irides dull hazel: from the angle of the lower mandible springs a carunculated orange-coloured membrane, tending downwards like the wattle of a Cock; this is about a quarter of an inch in size: the general colour of the plumage is full black ; but the back and wing coverts are ferruginous : the legs are black.
The female is wholly of a dull ferruginous brown: the bill and legs are the same as in the male; but the wattle is not so large, nor is it very conspicuous, except in old birds.
This species is found in New Zealand, particularly in the southern island, where it is pretty common, as Dr. Forster informs me; and that is has a weak piping voice, not worthy of being called a song"
Latham's illustration of the male saddleback is based on a watercolour drawing by George Forster now in the collection of the Natural History Museum, made in Tamatea, Dusky Sound in 1773 during Cook's second voyage to the Pacific.
Dr Rebecca Rice, Senior Curator Art, January 2026