In the days when colour printing was extremely expensive, the Avicultural Society had special appeals for funds to support the appearance in Avicultural Magazine of the occasional colour plate. A well-known bird artist was then commissioned. Although the whole run of the Society’s magazines can be found online, the plates rarely see the light of day. Therefore I decided to show one, now and again, on this site. This is the 8th in the series.
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This plate illustrates an article by the artist, George Morrison Reid Henry (1891-1983). He published and signed his work ‘G.M. Henry’. One of eleven children, his father was manager of tea estates in what was then Ceylon. He was educated at home by his older sisters. After working as a laboratory assistant he was taken on as a draughtsman by the Colombo Museum. He worked his way up and in 1913 was appointed to a new post of Assistant in Systematic Entomology. He stayed in in that post until he retired in 1946. His son, David Morrison Reid Henry (1919-1977) was also a bird painter.
The Sri Lanka spurfowl (Galloperdix bicalcarata) is endemic to Sri Lanka where it is relatively common in the lush forests but less commonly seen. It skulks in forests and Henry wrote ‘that with the possible exception of some of the rails, the most difficult to observe in Nature of any of the Island’s birds; such contacts as are made with it being generally confined to a brief glimpse as it dashes into cover when suddenly come upon some jungle path’. We saw it at Sinharaja Forest Reserve in 2013.
Avicultural Magazine 66, 1960
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