Querquedula [Blue-Winged Teal]

London: Printed for Charles Marsh, Thomas Wilcox and Benjamin Stichall, 1754. hand-coloured etched plate on fine laid paper. A fine plate of the Blue Winged Teal from the second edition of the "most famous colorplate book of American plant and animal life ... a fundamental and original work for the study of American species" (Hunt).

Trained as a botanist, Catesby travelled to Virginia in 1712 and remained there for seven years, sending back to England collections of plants and seeds. With the encouragement of Sir Hans Sloane and others, Catesby returned to America in 1722 to seek materials for his Natural History; he travelled extensively in Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and the Bahamas, sending back further specimens. His preface provides a lengthy account of the development of this work, including his decision to study with Joseph Goupy in order to learn to etch his copper plates himself to ensure accuracy and economy. The end result is encyclopaedic: Catesby provides information not only on the botany and ornithology of the area, but also on its history, climate, geology and anthropology. Catesby's Querquedula is the blue-winged teal, now Spatula discors, one of the small dabbling ducks of North American marshes and shallow ponds. Its English name comes from the powder-blue upper wing coverts, a colour usually seen in flight and mostly hidden when the bird is swimming or at rest. Catesby's plate shows the compact body, white facial crescent, and low wetland setting by which the male is more readily known.

Cf. Anker 95; cf. Clark I:55; cf. Dunthorne 72; cf. Fine Bird Books (1990), p. 86; cf. Great Flower Books (1990), p.85; cf. Meisel III:340; cf. Nissen BBI 336, IVB 177; cf. Sabin 11509; cf. Stafleu & Cowan TL2 1057; cf. Wood p. 282; cf. Amy Meyers and Margaret Pritchard, Empire's Nature, Mark Catesby's New World Vision, Williamsburg, 1998.