Descrizione

London, British Ornithological Union, 1901. 8vo (22.6 x 14.6 mm). xxxiii, 782, xxi pp.; 15 plates (14 hand-coloured), one printed b/w photo, and several line drawings and maps in the text. Contemporary half morocco over marbled boards. Spine with five raised bands; compartments with gilt acorn vignettes and gilt title. Top edge sprinkled red. Brown endpapers. Original printed wrappers bound in. = A rare volume from the one of the longest running and most influential ornithological magazines. Especially the earlier years, with fine plates by the best zoology illustrators oif their time, viz., John Gerrard Keulemans, Joseph Smit, and Henrik Grönvold, are very uncommon and sought-after. This volume includes three such plates by Smit (two anatomical), six by Keulemans, two by Grönvold, as well as three by George Edward Lodge. Provenance: Armorial bookplate of the British zoologist and ornithologist John Lewis Bonhote (1875-1922) mounted on the front pastedown, and on the front free endpaper recto a pictorial bookplate, heightened with silver, of the Japanese ornithologist Marquis Masauji Hachisuka (1903-1953), author of, e.g., The Dodo and Kindred Birds. Mounted on the rear pastedown a printed sheet memorating that this book once (in 1937) was a gift by the Japanese botanist Daikichi Shibata (1877-1949). Raised bands slightly rubbed; some scattered, mild foxing; otherwise, a very good complete copy.