This drawing was not catalogued explicitly by Ruskin, although it may have been one of the studies of birds by Marks which he mentioned under No. 168 in his 1878 catalogue of the Educational Series. It was presumably one of the 'eleven studies of birds ("Zoo, 1877") by H.S. Marks, R.A.' listed as being in the Long Cabinet by Cook and Wedderburn (XXI.306). The imprecision of Cook and Wedderburn's description of the cabinet mean that it has been given an arbitrary number within the cabinet for the purposes of the current catalogue.
Presumably presented by John Ruskin to the Ruskin Drawing School (University of Oxford)