Historical bird plates

Gould, The Birds of Australia · Volume VII, plate 45

Northern Giant-Petrel

Printed “Giant Petrel”

Volume VII, plate 45 of Gould's The Birds of Australia: Northern Giant-Petrel (Macronectes halli)
Full resolutionSmithsonian Libraries and Archives, via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Printed on the plate

“Giant Petrel”

Procellaria gigantea

Engraved caption: Procellaria gigantea

Modern identification

Northern Giant-Petrel

Macronectes halli

  • Judged
  • Checked against the engraved caption
  • Shearwaters and Petrels · Procellariidae

Why

Gould describes the bill as 'light horn-colour, the tip tinged with vinous', and the plate paints a horn bill with a pink tip; the bill tip is reddish in the Northern Giant-Petrel and pale green in the Southern at every age. Gould's prose takes in both species (his white 'albino variety' was a white-morph Southern), but the figured bird is a Northern.

Sources

List of Plates (vol. VII); engraved caption on the leaf; Gould's text; the plate

Who made the plate

Hullmandel & Walton Imp

As the credit line gives it. More on who made these plates.