Mark Catesby (1683–1749). The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. London: W. Innys and R. Manby, 1731–1743. Jay I. Kislak Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (160.00.02)
Eighteenth-Century Naturalist
Mark Catesby was an early eighteenth-century naturalist who visited Virginia, the Carolinas, Florida, and the West Indies. His second voyage in the 1720s was financed, in part, by Sir Hans Sloane, also a naturalist. Catesby sent back copious quantities of biological materials to his friends and supporters in London. His two-volume Natural History contains 220 large-scale, detailed, plates of plants and animals that were drawn, etched, and hand colored by Catesby.