Hidden treasure

This is clearly not an iceberg or an albatross. Its a painting by Sarah Stone and is called Sir Ashton Lever's Museum. It was painted in March 1785 and is a wonderful example of the natural historian collector's dream.

The Museum is full of natural history specimens from around the world and it takes ages to search through it.

Look at the scarlet ibis in the third gallery. Go down to the bottom and one case in to the left. Its a penguin.

In 1785 the penguins of the far south were a real oddity. This may explain the strange look and crooked wings. Unless its not a penguin but an auk, a northern hemisphere bird first called penguins by sailors. When Europeans discovered southern penguins the two species were so alike that the southern birds became penguins and the name gradually stuck south. Great Auks were extinct by the mid nineteenth century and that solved the confusion.

So where did the penguin come from ? We know that Cook had come back with penguins in 1775. And that sealers started going south pretty quickly after Cook. Not many returned with penguin specimens. It doesn't look like a South American or South African or Australasian penguin ?

So ?

Steve