Before the poet Edward Lear sent the owl and the pussycat out to sea in a beautiful pea green boat in his 1867 poem, he combined them in this c.1846 watercolour, right.
It measures 5 x 3½in (13.5 x 9cm) and is inscribed Ye Owly Pusseycatte, a new Beast found in ye Island of New South Wales.
The animal wears a settler’s wide-awake hat with two peacock feathers and smokes a churchwarden pipe.