A Dead Snipe & Hawks Head / Locust of the C. of G. Hope

One side of this sheet features a watercolour of a dead snipe and a hawk’s head with a fragment of a coastal profile in the upper left. The latter is inscribed ‘Cape Hanglip’, probably a reference to the Hangklip mountain in the Western Cape, South Africa. The partial profile suggests that the sheet may have been cut from a larger sheet or from a sketchbook. The other side of the sheet features a graphite sketch of a brown locust (Locustana pardalina), inscribed ‘Locust of the C. of G. Hope’. These drawings are the work of naval officer Aiskew Paffard Hollis (1764–1844). They were probably made between 1796 and 1798, when Hollis was serving at the Cape of Good Hope, initially in the ‘Chichester’ and later in the ‘Tremendous’. For other examples of his work, see PAH4885 and ZBB0352–84.