Australian Channel Bill cuckoo. George Shaw c1811.

by Mrs. M. Griffith

Antique print of Channel-billed Cuckoo, Scythrops Novaehollandiae, cuckoo. It is the largest cuckoo and the largest brood parasitic bird.

Original hand-coloured copperplate engraving by Mrs M. Griffith  for General Zoology or Systematic Natural History by George Shaw, M.D.F.R.S., &c. Published by George Kearsley in Fleet Street, London in 1881 (with later hand-colour).

George Shaw (1751-1813) was the son of Reverend Timothy Shaw, George was educated by his father until 1765, when he entered Magdalen College, Oxford (B.A., 1769. M.A., 1772). George Shaw was ordained as a Deacon in 1774 but left this profession to study medicine in Edinburgh for three years. He then returned to Oxford where he was deputy-lecturer in Botany. He was admitted to the degrees of M.B. and M.D. in 1787 and then began practicing as a doctor in London. In 1788 he joined the newly founded Linnean Society of London, and in 1789 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1791 Shaw was appointed to the natural history section of the British Museum, and in 1807 was appointed keeper and retained that position until he died.

Page measures 215 x 130mm, with slight soiling.