Charles Waterton (1782-1865). A portrait steel plate engraved frontis with later tinting from "Essays on Natural History by Charles Waterton,edited with a life of the author by Norman Moore,B.A." Published by Frederick Warne & Co,Bedford Street,Covent Garden,(1871). It is engraved from the original,painted from life by Charles Wilson Peale in 1824 when Waterton was 41. This was just before publication of Waterton's best selling 'Wanderings in South America' (1825). Charles Waterton was a highly eccentric British Naturalist,and Squire of Walton Hall,who created behind the wall of his grounds,one of the worlds first nature preserves. There no hunting was allowed and the public could visit for pleasure. Waterton's famous escapades also include riding a caiman and creating the satirical taxidermy 'Nondescript" |