Chatham Island Shag

Fine art print inspired by John Gerrard Keulemans.

Features the Chatham-Island Shag, now known as the Pitt Island Shag (Stictocarbo featherstoni).

Buller said:

"This beautiful addition to the ornithology of our country was one of the novelties brought from the Chatham Islands by Mr. Henry Travers on his return from the exploratory visit mentioned on a former page... the original specimen having been courteously forwarded to me by Sir James Hector, through the Colonial Office, I saw at a glance that we had a new species to record, and was therefore glad of the opportunity thus afforded me of describing and figuring it in my former edition...Several further examples have been received at the Colonial Museum, and Mr. Walter Hood informs me that it is a comparatively common bird on the rocks lying off the Chatham Islands, and that he found it breeding there in the months of October and November. On Pitt Island these birds were so tame that he knocked over two of them with a small stone."

Walter Buller KCMG (1838 - 1906) was a New Zealand lawyer and naturalist. His work, "A History of the Birds of New Zealand", was first published in 1873 and as an extended version in 1888. It is regarded as a classic of ornithology and New Zealand wildlife and describes several now extinct birds.

The artist who illustrated the birds was John Gerrard Keulemanns, regarded as one of the finest wildlife illustrators of all time.