Nature was an indispensable part of the British domination of the world. Visualization of nature was inextricably linked with the political legitimacy of the British Indian Empire. This chapter explores the complex entanglements of the natural environment and imperialism. I am interested in how visual representations of flora and fauna became inextricable to colonial natural historical enquiries in India, a topic yet to receive attention at par with the histories of natural history in Europe. Imagery of nature, as we shall see here, became a metaphor for British rule as well as its limitations.

By the second half of the eighteenth century, British interest in India's natural world had become nothing short of material enrichment, as evident from Erasmus Darwin's portrayal of the Britannic Majesty adorned in the productions of nature.