item details
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 Sacred Kings-fisher, known today as the Sacred Kingfisher or Kōtare, Todiramphus sanctus, illustrated here, Latham wrote (note Latham used of 'f' in place of 's' - this has been reversed here to enable ease of reading):
"Another variety, said to come from Ulietea, was of the same size as the above. Bill the same: the crown of the head greenish black: over the eye a ferruginous streak: beneath and behind the eye a broad streak of black, which passed to the hind head, and encompassed it all round: chin white; neck, breast, and belly, pale ferruginous; this colour encompassing the neck like a collar: each feather of the throat, neck and breast, margined with dusky: outside of the thighs blackish, as in the others: back and wings like the head: rump pale blueish green: quills and tail feathers bleackish, with blue marins: legs dusky"
Latham described four varieties of the Sacred Kingfisher in his text, here, mistakenly treating this as a separate species from Ulietea, present-day Tahiti. Later research showed that his account combined several species, including the variety found in New Zealand. Of the New Zealand Sacred Kings-fisher, Latham noted that the specimen he studied 'was found at Dusky Bay, where it is called Ghotarre'.
Dr Rebecca Rice, Senior Curator Art, January 2026