In 1924 Casey Wood, founder of the Blacker Wood Library at McGill University in Montreal, acquired a large portfolio of paintings of Indian birds from an antiquarian dealer in London, England. In addition to 121 watercolours of birds, the portfolio contained a dozen botanical sketches and 31 watercolours of Indian fish. After further research, Wood concluded that the birds had been painted by Lady Elizabeth Gwillim (1763–1807), the wife of a Supreme Court justice in Madras (now Chennai), during the brief period from her arrival in 1801 until her death six years later. The bird paintings that so impressed Wood were created through the intersection of three different stories: the first, the work of a particularly focused Englishwoman who arrived in Madras prepared to paint its natural productions, especially its birds; the second, the story of the Indian bird catchers and the long history of fowling in India; and the third, the story of the birds themselves, their migrations, forced and otherwise, and their entrapments, which brought them into relationship with the bird catchers and the painter.

1924 年，蒙特利尔麦吉尔大学布莱克伍德图书馆的创始人凯西伍德从英国伦敦的一位古董商那里获得了大量的印度鸟类画作。除了 121 幅鸟类水彩画外，该作品集还包含十几幅植物素描和 31 幅印度鱼水彩画。经过进一步研究，伍德得出结论，这些鸟是马德拉斯（现为钦奈）最高法院法官的妻子伊丽莎白·格威廉（1763-1807 年）在她 1801 年抵达至去世六年的短暂时期内绘制的之后。给伍德留下如此深刻印象的鸟画是通过三个不同故事的交集创作的：第一个，一位特别专注的英国女人抵达马德拉斯，准备画其自然产品，尤其是鸟类；第二，印度捕鸟者的故事和印度悠久的捕鸟历史；第三，鸟类本身的故事，它们的迁徙，强迫和其他方式，以及它们的陷阱，这使它们与捕鸟者和画家产生了关系。