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Radde, Gustav (Ferdinand Richard[1831-1903]). Ornis Caucasica. Die Vogelwelt des Kaucasus systematisch und biologisch-geographisch beschrieben
Raffaele, Herbert, Wiley, J., Garido, O., Keith, A., Raffaele, J. A Guide to the birds of the West Indies.
Raffles Museum, Bulletin of Bulletin of the Raffles Museum Singapore, Straits Settlements No. 4. December 1930.
Rakus(z)an, Tsuchiya (1886-), Foster, Walter T. (publisher, author). The art of Rakusan Tsuchiya famous print maker of Japan.
Rakusan (Rakuzan) Tsuchiya (1896-1976) Black-headed munia and chrysanthemums
Rakusan (Rakuzan) Tsuchiya (1896-1976) Golden Eagle on ginko
Ralph, Robert William MacGillivray Creatures of the air, land and sea
Rambert, Eugène (1830-1886), Robert, Léo Paul (1851-1923)(ouvrage publié sous la direction de D. Lebet). Les oiseaux dans la nature Description pittoresque des oiseaux utiles.
(Rambert, Eugène[1830-1886], Robert, [Leo] Paul [1851-1923]) Les oiseaux utiles ou les amis de l'agriculteur Description des principales espèces d'oiseaux utiles a l'agriculture
Rambert, Eugène (1830-1886), Robert, Léo Paul (1851-1923) Nos oiseaux
Ramseyer, Joh(ann) Ul(rich) (fl. ca. 1920). Unsere gefiederten Freunde / Freud und Leid der Vogelwelt.
Rand, Austin Loomer (1905-). The distribution and habits of Madagascar birds.
Rand, Austin L(oomer) (1905-), Gilliard, E(rnest) Thomas (1912-1965). Handbook of New Guinea birds.
(Rathbone, Hannah [Mrs. Richard, neé Reynolds][1798-1878]). The poetry of birds.
Rathbun, Frank R. Bright feathers or some North American birds of beauty.
(Ray, John [1628-1705]), Salerne, (François, d. 1760). L'histoire naturelle Éclaircie dans une de ses parties principales, l'ornithologie....
Ray, John (1628-1705). A collection of English words not generally used, with their significations and original, in two alphabetical catalogues....
Reade, Brian. Edward Lear's parrots....
Reader’s Digest Association Limited and Automobile Association (Richard Fitter, Consultant Editor) Book of British birds
Reboussin, Roger (1881-1965). L’Oiseau chez lui....
Reboussin, Roger (1881-1965), and Pierre Jeanson (compiler, editor, publisher). Les oiseaux de France....
Reed, C. Albert, editor (1876-1912) ( so designated for Volume 1. designated Chester A. Reed for volumes 2-5). American ornithology for the home and school. Volumes 1-5
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912) American ornithology for the home and school Volumes 5-6.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912) Bird guide Part 1 water birds, game birds and birds of prey east of the Rockies 1906
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912). Bird guide Part 1 water birds, game birds and birds of prey east of the Rockies 1906
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912). Bird guide Part 1 water birds, game birds and birds of prey east of the Rockies. (1906)
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912) Bird guide water birds game birds and birds of prey 1910
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912) Bird guide water birds game birds and birds of prey east of the Rockies 1913
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912). Bird guide water birds, game birds and birds of prey. 1921
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912). Bird guide part 2 land birds east of the Rockies from parrots to bluebirds. 1905
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912). Bird guide part 2 land birds east of the Rockies...1905 Second copy
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912). Bird guide part 2 land birds east of the Rockies from parrots to bluebirds. 1906
Reed, Chester, A(lbert)(1876-1912). Bird guide part 2 land birds east of the Rockies from parrots to bluebirds. 1908
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912). Bird guide part 2 land birds east of the Rockies from parrots to bluebirds (1906)
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912) Bird guide part 2 Land birds east of the Rockies from parrots to bluebirds 1909
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912). Bird guide part 2 land birds east of the Rockies from parrots to bluebirds 1910
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912). Bird guide part 2 land birds east of the Rockies from parrots to bluebirds 1912
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912). Bird guide part 2 land birds east of the Rockies from parrots to bluebirds 1916
Reed, Chester A(lbert). (1876-1912). Bird guide land birds east of the Rockies from parrots to bluebirds. 1945
Reed, Chester A(lbert). (1876-1912). Nature study Birds
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912) Nature studies in / field and wood 1911
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912) Camera studies of wild birds in their homes
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912). Birds of eastern North America. 1912
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912) Illustrated bird dictionary and note book land birds of eastern North America (1912)
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912) Ilustrated bird dictionary and note book Land birds of eastern North America (1912)
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912) Illustrated bird dictionary and note book water birds, game birds and birds of prey illustrations of more than 200 species 1912
Reed, C.(hester) A.(lbert) (1876-1912) Wild Birds of New York. 1912
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912) Wild birds of New England 1912
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912) American game birds 1912
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912), Harvey, Harry F., Brasher, R(eginald) I. ("Rex", [1869-1960]). Western bird guide birds of the Rockies and west to the Pacific. 1913
Reed, Chester A. (1876-1912). The bird book illustrating in natural colors more than seven hundred North American birds.... 1914
Reed, Chester A. (1876-1912). The bird book illustrating in natural colors more than seven hundred North American birds; also several hundred photographs of their nests and eggs 1915
Reed, Chas. K. (1851-1921), Reed, Chester A. (lbert)(1876-1912) Guide to taxidermy
Reichenbach, H(einrich) G(ottlieb) L(udwig) (1793-1879). Die vollständige Naturgeschichte der Schwimmvögel: Aves Natatores. Oiseaux Nageurs.
Reichenbach, Ludovico (Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig, 1793-1879). Icones ad Synopsin Avium.
Reichenbach, H(einrich) G(ottlieb) Ludwig (1793-1879). Deutschlands Fauna.
Reichenow, A. (1847-1941). Die Vögel Deutsch-Ost-Afrikas.
Reichenow, Anton (1847-1941) (Steinbacher, Joachim, Boeticher, Hans von). Vogelbilder aus fernen Zonen-Papagaien Abbildungen und Beschreibungen.
Religious Tract Society. A book about birds.
Religious Tract Society (British Land Birds, Anonymous). British land birds.
Religious Tract Society (anonymous, William Dickes) British birds The water birds
Religious Tract Society (anonymous, William Dickes) British birds The water birds (colored)
Richards, Harriet E. and Cummings, Emma G. Baby bird-finder
Richardson, J. (1787-1865) and Gray, J. E. (1800-1875). The zoology of the voyage of the H. M. S. Erebus....
Ricker, Everett, W. (Maynard, Charles Johnson[1845-1929]). Notes on the birds of Hull, Massachusetts....
Rickman, Philip (1891-1982) (Colebrook-Robjent, Richard, editor). A selection of bird paintings and sketches.
Rickman, Philip (1891-). A bird-painter's sketch book.
Rickman, Philip (1891-1982). Sketches & notes from a bird painter's journal.
Ridgely, Robert S., and Guy Tudor. The birds of South America.
Ridgley, Robert S. (1946-) (illustrated by John A. Gwynne, Jr.). A guide to the birds of Panama.
Ridgeway, Robert (1850-1929), Goering, A.(nton), Muetzel, Gustav North American birds 36 colored plates after water-color paintings
Ridgway, Robert (1850-1929). A nomenclature of colors for naturalists and compendium of useful knowledge for ornithologists.
Ridgway, Robert (1850-1929). Color standards and color nomenclature.
Ridgway, Robert (1850-1929). A manual of North American birds.
Ridgway, Robert et al. "Ornithology" Collection of 11 offprints by various authors, 1893-1899.
Ridgway, Robert (1850-1929). The ornithology of Illinois.
Ripley, S(idney) Dillon (1913-2001) (paintings by Lansdowne, J(ames) Fenwick [1936-]; chapter on fossil rails by Olson, Storrs L.). Rails of the world a monograph of the family Rallidae.
Robart, J. B. (fl ca 1817) Original watercolor painting of two birds
Robert, L. P. (1851-1923). Les oiseaux de chez nous.
Roberts, Thomas S(adler) (1858-1946). The birds of Minnesota.
Roberts, Austin (1883-1948). Roberts birds of South Africa.
Roberts, Austin (1883-1948). The birds of South Africa.
Roberts, Thomas S(adler)(1858-1946). Bird portraits in color two hundred ninety-five North American species.
Robinson, Herbert C(hristopher) (1874-1929). The birds of the Malay peninsula....
Robinson, Wirt (1864-1929). A flying trip to the tropics.
Rochbrune, Alphonse Tremeau de, (1834-). Faune de la Sénégambie.
(Rochefort, Charles César, Compte de [1605-]). The history of the / Caribby-Islands …
Rogers-Price, V. John Abbot's birds of Georgia
Ronsil, René. Bibliographie ornithologique française Travaux publiés en langue française et en latin en France et dans les Colonies Françaises de 1473 à 1944.
Ronsil, René (fl. second half of 20th century). L'art Français dans le livre d'oiseaux (Eléments d'une iconographie ornithologique française)
Rookmaaker, L. C., Mundy, P.(eter) J., Glenn, I.(an) E., Spary, E.(mma) C. (translator, Webb, F.(leur) M.) François Levaillant and the birds of Africa
Roosevelt, Theodore (1858-1919). Revealing and concealing coloration in birds and mammals
Roosevelt, Theodore (1858-1919), Minot, H. D. The summer birds of the Adirondacks.... 1925
Root, Nina J., Johnson, Bryan R.(1956). Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London index to the artists 1848-1900
Root, Nina J., Johnson, Bryan R. (1956). Transactions of the Zoological Society of London an index to the artists / 1835-1936
Rosenberg, C.(arl) B.(enjamin) H.(ermann)), von (1817-1888). Reistochten naar de Geelvinkbaai op Nieuw-Guinea in de jaren 1869 en 1870
Rothschild, (Lionel)Walter(1868-1937). The avifauna of Laysan and the neighboring islands with a complete history to date of the birds of the Hawiian Possessions
Rothschild, (Lionel) Walter (1868-1937), Pycraft, W.(alter)P.(lane)(1868-1952). A monograph of the genus Casuarius …
Roux, (Jean Louis Florent) Polydore (1792-1833). Ornithologie provençale, ou description avec figures coloriées…
Rowley, G. D. (1822-1878). Ornithological miscellany
Rowley, Ian, Russell, Eleanor and Marsack, Peter Fairy-wrens, grasswrens Maluridae
Royal Magazine, the The Royal Magazine, December, 1765
Rudbeck, Olof (1660-1740)(Löwendahl, Björn, editor). Olof Rudbeck's Book / of / birds / a facsimile of the original watercolors …
Rüppell, Dr. Eduard (Wilhelm Peter Eduard Simon) (1794-1884). Systematische Uebersicht der Vögel Nord-Ost-Afrika's nebst …
Ruschi, Augusto (1915-1986). Aves do Brasil
Ruschi, Augusto (1915-1986). Aves do Brasil Voll. II. chaves artificiais analiticas
Ruschi, Augusto (1915-1986) Beija-Flores do estado do Espirito Santo Hummingbirds of the state of Espirito Santo
Russ, Karl (Friedrich Otto)(1833-1899) Die Papageien, ihre Naturgeschichte, Pflege, Züchtung und Abrichtung
Russ, Karl Friedrich Otto (1833-1899). Vögel der Heimat Unsre (sic) Voglewelt in Lebensbildern.
Radde, Gustav (Ferdinand Richard[1831-1903])
Ornis Caucasica. / Die Vogelwelt des Kaucasus / systematisch und biologisch-geographisch beschrieben 30.7 x 21.5 cm. π91-744[$1, 2 signed]; 305 ll. Pp. [I-IX]X-XI[XI](6)[1]2-592. Contemporary boards with later morocco backing. Spine with five raised ridges and two compartments containing red morocco labeling pieces. Patterned endpapers, reticulated edges. Kassel, Theodor Fischer, 1884.
π1r, Half-title; π1v, blank; π2r, title; π2v, quotations; π3r, dedication to Tsar; π3v, blank; π4r-π4v, declaration of fealty to Tsar; π5r-π6v, foreword; π7r, explanation of frontispiece; π7v, blank; π8r-π8v, list of subscribers (48 accounting for 64 copies); π9r, summary of contents; π9v, blank; 1, introduction; 19, explanation of plates; 21, summary listing of species and data; 51, descriptons of orders, suborders and species; 493, physical geography; 521, migration; 558, summary of migration dates; 588, first supplemsnt; 590, explanation of map; Contains chromolithographed map, frontispiece and Tafel I-XXV (24 of birds, one of eggs) all by Theodor Fischer after original drawing by Radde save plate XXII which is after Gustav Mützel.
Radde was director of the Caucasian Museum and Library in Tiflis, the capital of Georgia. This work covers 367 species and 66 subspecies based on 4106 specimens many of which were collected by Radde himself. For each species there are two sections; the first, "Systematisches" comprises measurements and physical characteristics of these specimens as compared with those reported for the same species in Europe or elsewhere; the second, "Lebensweise und Verbreitung" pertains to points of interest in the life history, and the distribution of the species within Caucasia. There are also extensive discussions of migration and the relevance of physical geography to distribution.
This work is said to have been issued in four (Zimmer) or 20 (Anker) parts. Short second, third and fourth supplements were published later (1885-1890) elsewhere (vide Zimmer, Anker). There was also an edition on Cyrillic published in 1884.
This is an important work since it is the first to describe in detail the avifauna of this area and since it describes several interesting geographical variations.
Anker, 412; Trinity, p. 194; Wood, p. 527; Yale, p. 235; Zimmer, p. 499.
Raffaele, Herbert, Wiley, J., Garido, O., Keith, A., Raffaele, J.
A Guide to the Birds of / The West Indies 23.3 x 15.7 cm. Pp. [1-8]9-511(1). 256 ll. Original green cloth, gilt lettered spine, pictorial dust jacket. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998. Printed in the U. K. by Butler & Tanner, Ltd, Somerset.
First Printing. 1, Half-title; 3, title; 4, publishing information; 5, dedication; 7, contents; 9, foreword; 11, introduction; 14, using the guide; 17, biogeography; 21, conservation; 40, descriptive parts of a bird; 41-214, plates 1-86 with descriptive letter-press on verso of preceding plate; 215, species accounts; 451, vagrants; 452, selected references; 453, locality checklist; 496, index of English and scientific names; 502, index of local names.
Guides to the ornithology of biogeographical areas are a publishing event of the last decade of the 20th century and they are getting better and better. This one is outstanding. The text covers 564 species, for each of which there is an Indies distribution map and a concentrated text that includes “identification”, “voice”, “status and range”, “habitat” and “nesting”. Most of the plates are by Tracy Pedersen and Kristin Williams, with a few by Roman Company, Christopher Cox, Cynthie Fisher, Don Radovich and Bart Rulon. Every ordinary species is shown in taxonomic order on 65 of these plates. A single plate is devoted to casually- occurring species. An additional 12 plates depict a single endemic from each of 12 islands and another 7 are devoted to endemics of the four largest islands, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. Endemics from other islands constitute the last of the 86 plates, all of which are of an excellent artistic and printed standard.
It is quite extraordinary that such a useful and attractive book could be so inexpensive. The reason is that the cost of production was subsidized by the World Wildlife Fund U. S.; the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Services; and the U. S. Forest Service.
Raffles Museum, Bulletin of
Bulletin / of the / Raffles Museum / Singapore, Straits Settlements No. 4. December 1930. 25.1 x 16.4 cm. Pp. PL, 1-124. Original printed red wrappers with contents on upper cover, contents of previous numbers on inner side of upper cover. Singapore, Raffles Museum, Government Printing Office, December, 1930.
PL1r, title and contents as on wrapper; PL1v, blank; 1, on a collection of birds from the lowlands / and islands of North Borneo by F.(rederic) N.(utter) Chasen(1896-1942) and C.(ecil) Boden Kloss (1877-1949); 113, a list of the birds of Banguey, Balambangan and / Mallewalle islands, British North Borneo by F. N. Chase and C. Boden Kloss; 117, the birds of Mangalum and Mantanani Islands off / the west coast of British North Borneo by C. Boden Kloss;124, additions to the list of Bornean birds by F. N. Chasen and C. Boden Kloss.
C. Boden Kloss was the Director of Museums of British Malaya and F. N. Chasen was the Curator of the Raffles Museum and Library. The first number of the Journal was issued in September 1928.
The first article in the present issue is the most important. Chasen and Kloss collected 211 species of which about 18 represented new “forms” or “races”. Many measurements and much basic ornithological material are presented and there is a complete bibliography covering previous collections from lowland North Borneo.
The second article lists 77 species from the islands, most of which were collected by Chasen and Kloss though some were included from previous literature. Only two species were found that were not known from mainland Borneo.
The third article lists eight species from Mangalum Island and 13 from the Mantanani Islands.
The fourth article adds three new birds to the Bornean list based on specimens secured by
others.
This journal was not widely distributed and OCLC locates only one copy of the first article although it is an important one with respect to the birdlife of Borneo.
Rakus(z)an, Tsuchiya (1896-1976), Foster, Walter T. (publisher, author)
The Art of / Rakusan Tsuchiya / Famous Print Maker of Japan 35.0 x 26.2 Pp. [1-2]3-26, 29-31-32] including pictorial wrappers; 15 ll. 27/28 Lacking (in this copy?) Laguna Beach California, Foster Art Services, ND (ca. 1940). Price $1.00 designated on upper cover which also contains the number 57, perhaps indicating a series.
This copy includes a single page of introduction, five pages of diagrams and instructions concerning the production of wood blocks and drawing, 21 pages of colored prints including two half-page, one two-page and 13 full-page, a page of advertisements with price list, and the pictorial wrappers.
In Japan, the family name is usually given first and the given name is usually used in the promotional designation. This is precisely the opposite of the Western convention and westerners often "correct" it in their translations. Thus, this artist's name is Tsuchiya Rakusan (or Rakuzan) with the family name Tsuchiya and the given and promotional name, Rakusan. Often, a print maker was given different promotional names by different publishers (for example, Koson, Shoson, Hoson for the artist whose original name was Ohara Matao but who is most widely recognized as Ohara Koson or Koson Ohara). Rakuzan's original birth name was Tsuchiya Kouzou.
Rakusan, a Kyoto artist, was an interesting historical figure, a kind of Japanese Rex Brasher. Although he was contemporary with the Shin Hanga movement that emphasized the separate contributions of the artist, woodcarver, printer and publisher, he fulfilled or strictly controlled all these functions himself. He produced a series of about 100 prints each depicting a bird and a flower of Japan. These were large, about the size of the D. G. Elliot folios, and were issued in print runs of perhaps 100-220 copies. They are offered through Foster in this catalog for $25.00. At the present time (2002), they are rarely seen although there is one English dealer with a substantial stock. He charges approximately £350-550 per print and dates them all (arbitrarily ?) to about 1930. Rakusan's style is very distinctive and the best of the prints are extremely attractive and not at all like other Japanese prints of the kacho-e genre.
Foster wrote and/or published a series of "how to" books about art. This work, in effect a promotional catalog, is a bit different because it seems clear that Foster collected Rakusan's work and served as his agent in the U. S. A.
Rakusan (Rakuzan) Tsuchiya (1896-1976)
Black-headed munia and chrysanthemums Wove paper. Double oban. Paper size, 596 x 458 mm. Image size, 478 x 342 mm. Japanese woodblock print with gold sprinkling. From the Rakuzan Kachou Gafu (100 Series). First printing. Kyoto, ca 1930 (1929-1933). Label of authenticity on verso.
The series of 100 very large-format colored woodblock prints by Rakusan is amongst the most beautiful suites of bird prints done in the 20th century. It was first issued in an edition of 200 sets over the period 1929-1933. Generally, two prints were issued per month. A second edition including many reprintings of individual designs was put out from 1933 to about 1941 and a third edition reprinting a smaller number of the original designs was done sometime between 1947 and 1955. This information, together with criteria for identifying the various editions was obtained from an article by Dr. Michael Nichols, “Determining the edition of a 100 series print”, at www.rakusan.net.
The present example is from the original edition as indicated by: the six character watermark at the base of the sheet which reads, right to left, Raku-zan Ka-chou Ga-fu; the three character signature, Rakuzan Kyo at the lower left; and the seal A at the lower left. The watermark is the most definitive criterion. This plate was number 35 of the original issue.
Individual prints from the original series such as this one are scarce. A complete set is probably unobtainable.
William MacGillivray / Creatures of the air, land and sea 28.8 x 23.0 cm. Pp. [1-5]6-128. Original publisher’s plain blue cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Color pictorial dust jacket with striking image of gray heron on upper wrapper. Gray endpapers.London, Merrell Holberton and the Natural History Museum, (1999).
1, Half-title; 2, colored frontispiece, honey buzzard; 3, title; 4, copyright 1999, Natural History Museum; ISBN 1 85894 088 5; designed by Robert Davies; produced by Merrell Holberton, Publishers; printed and bound in Italy; 5, contents; 6, acknowledgements; 7, introduction; 9, Edinburgh-a hotbed of genius; 15, MacGillivray’s early years; 31, a walk to London; 49, the 1820s, years of uncertainty; 57, the path to Edinburgh-John James Audubon; 65, the 1830s-the ornithological biography; 83, the 1830s-Mack’gillivray’s amazing decade; 107, MacGillivray’s art; 115, Aberdeen again; 124, postscript; 127, bibliography (about 54 references); index of proper human names. Contains half-tone colored plates 1-57, mostly depicting birds and included in pagination with running text on their obverses. Also contains uncolored text figures 1-37.
MacGillivray deserves to be better appreciated. He collaborated with Audubon on the “Ornithological biography…”(1831-39) and was the author of the well received “ A history of British birds, indigenous and migratory…”(1837-52). This latter work had the misfortune of being contemporary with Yarrell’s “A history of British birds”(1837-43) which became the standard work.
Less well known is MacGillivray’s considerable talent as a zoological artist. The British Museum has 214 of his original watercolors which were highly regarded by his friend, Audubon, and the present book contains reproductions of many of them
OCLC locates about 80 copies.
Rakusan (Rakuzan) Tsuchiya (1896-1976)
Golden Eagle on ginko Fine thin rice paper laid on card. Paper size, 39.0 x 53.0 cm. Image size, 33.8 x 47.8 cm. Japanese woodblock print with metallic sprinkling. Plate 52 from the Rakuzan Kachou Gafu series of 100. First printing. Kyoto, (1929-1933).
This is one of the most impressive of the 100 constituting Rakuzan Kachou Gafu. It appears to be a first printing based on the six character watermark.
Rambert, Eugène (1830-1886), Robert, Léo Paul (1851-1923)(ouvrage publié sous la direction de D. Lebet).
Les / oiseaux / dans la nature / description pittoresque des oiseaux utiles 41.5 x 31.0 cm. 65 Unnumbered printed leaves (130 pp) without signatures as described below. Near contemporary half-blue morocco with triple gilt ruling and marbled board sides. Spine with five gilt raised bands, gilt lettering of title and authors in second compartment, the other five with elaborate gilt design. Marbled endpapers. TEG, others uncut. Paris, D. Lebet, (1878-1880).
First leaf: recto, half-title; verso, blank.
Second leaf: recto, title partly printed in red, woodcut owl design; verso, blank.
Third-4r. avant-propos; 4v, blank.
5-64, species accounts (60), one leaf per species.
65, table de matières.
Contains chromolithographic plates I-LX after Robert, each mounted within a ruled frame of 23 x 18 cm. The lithography was by Thurwanger and the printing by Lemercier. Also contains 30 unnumbered uncolored hors texte wood engraved plates after Robert, the engraving by Florian Rognon, Lepère, and Burgun. One of these is a titular frontispiece inserted between the half-title and title. The avant-propos and each species account all contain a wood-cut initial letter and a wood-cut tail-piece, a total of 123 uncolored wood-cuts.
Lebet originally conceived of a school book illustrating useful birds for children. However, Robert’s beautiful artwork created an immediate sensation in 1878 and caused Lebet to expand his ambitions for the work. Beginning with the appearance of this work, Robert has always been a favorite among connoisseurs of ornithological art. His birds are full of character and that character is always faithful to nature indicating a keen knowledge of his subjects in the field. His backgrounds are equally interesting, the foreground indicative of the life history of the species, the more distant area in a nostalgic, impressionistic mode. Some or all of these plates were also used to illustrate Riesenthal’s Gefiederte Freunde (1889-1883), Harting’s Glimpses of bird life (1880), Sharpe’s Birds in nature (1888) and Trouessart’s Oiseaux utiles (1892). However, their reproduction by Lemercier is not particularly good and Robert’s Les oiseaux de chez nous (1929-1933, also issued as Unsere einheimische Vögel) provides a better representation of the artist’s great skill. Ronsil pays homage to this skill on page 87 of L’art Français…(1958).
The text for the present work includes a length measurement, a brief description, and an essay in very flowery prose that usually includes something of the life history of the species and why it is “useful”. I possess in my collection an octavo work, Les oiseaux utiles ou les amis de l’ agriculteur Description des principales espèces d’oiseaux utiles a l’agriculture, also published by Lebet, with sixty plates derived from the tail-pieces in the present book and with a much more succinct text.
This work is listed by Wood (p.528) and by Harvard but is unlisted by AMNH, BM(NH), Cornell, LOC, Melvyl, Oxford, Smithsonian, Trinity and Yale.
(Rambert, Eugène[1830-1886], Robert [Leo] Paul[1851-1923])
Three volumes in one. 18.0 x 11.7. Contemporary half-pebble grained green cloth and marbled boards. Marbled edges.
René et Liersel Traité / de / La Chasse / contenant / les Chasses a l'affut / a tir et a courre / augmenté de / toutes les lois et ordonnances nouvelles / y compris la loi du 24 Janvier 1874 / avec un commentaire analytique pour chaque article π21-1312/6144[$1, 5{1, 3}signed]; 126ll. Pp. (4), 1-248. Paris, Théodore Lefèvre, no date (ca. 1880s). π1r, Half-title; π1v, printer's designation: imprimerie de Crété and owner's designation, in this case signed by the publisher, Théodore Lefèvre; π2r, title; π2v, blank; 1, première partie, chasse aux quadrepèdes; 131, deuxième partie, chasse aux oiseaux; 244, contents; 245, alphabetical index. Contains many unnumbered, uncolored text wood cuts of animals, birds, hunting devices.
(Rembert, Eugène[1830-1886], Robert, [Leo] Paul [1851-1923]) Les / Oiseaux utiles / ou les / Amis de l'Agriculteur / Description des principales Espèces d'Oiseaux / utiles a l'Agriculture Pp. [1-3]4-126[127]128]; 64 ll. Lausanne, D. Lebet, no date (ca. 1885). 1, Title; 2, contents; 3, préface by Lebet; 5, classification; 8, species accounts; Contains 60 full-paged wood engravings after Robert of which four (Barn Swallow, Great Tit, Icterine Warbler and Goldfinch) show the birds (but not backgrounds) hand-colored. All plates included in pagination. Text for each plate is on the verso of the antecedent leaf.
Fleuriot, Céline L'Art d'élever / les Oiseaux / en Cage / et en Volière / contenant / la Description des Oiseaux de Volière / leurs Moeurs, leur Nourriture en Cage / les Symptomes de leurs Maladies, les Moyens de les soigner / Une Notice / sur les Perruches et les Perroquets / leur Education et le Moyen de leur apprendre à parler π21-1112/6 124[$1. 5{1. 3} signed]; 108 ll. Pp. (4)1-212. Paris, Théodore Lefèvre, no date (ca. 1880). π1r, Half-title; π1v, printer's designation: Crété and ownership designation, in this case signed by publisher; π2r, title; π2v, blank; 1, text; 209, contents; Contains wood cut title vignette and 45 unnumbered, uncolored text wood cuts of birds. Ronsil # 1093
The work of most interest to me is the one with illustrations by Robert, who signed himself Paul, but was actually Leo Paul. This is of some importance since his son, a 20th century ornithological artist, was also named Paul. Leo Paul Robert, the artist responsible for the superb wood cuts in the present work, won several prizes and became deservedly well known for a work published in 1878 entitled Les Oiseaux utiles dans la Nature-Description Pittoresque des Oiseaux utiles Ouvrage publié sous la direction de M. D. Lebet, Paris, Germer-Baillière. According to Ronsil (#2490), the work contained 60 colored plates, one for each species (chromolithographs by Lemercier), 30 full-page wood engravings and 122 text wood engravings. The text was written by Rambert.. On the title page of the present work, reference is made to the prizes won by Robert, one of which was awarded in 1884, so we know that this present publication was issued after 1884. In the preface, Lebet, now evidently a publisher in Lausanne, tells us that he is publishing this work to enable students in school to learn to distinguish useful birds since laws were recently promulgated that prohibited the killing of such useful birds. He tells us that the illustrations and text were taken from the original work. These 60 full-page wood cuts were taken from the text engravings. It is not clear to me why four of these pictures have the figures of birds colored by hand. The coloring is extremely accurate and professional and there is some oxidation suggesting that it was done by a knowledgeable, gifted contemporary hand. I have the feeling that the work was not published with these figures colored and I wonder whether it might not have been Robert himself who colored a few of the bird figures in this copy.
Finally, I have two earlier works by James Harting illustrated by Robert, Glimpses of Bird Life (1880) and Sketches of Bird Life (1883) that have some overlap of figures with this one. The Brambling in both of those books is reversed with respect to its image in the present work whereas the Great Tit is not so reversed. Even though the present work was published later than the two Harting books, one might assume that its wood engravings were taken from the original blocks since the same publisher is involved. Did Harting have some, but not all of his figures reengraved? The present work is not only absent from all major bibliographies, collections and libraries but is also not mentioned by David Lank in his compilation and analysis of published works containing illustrations by Robert.
These three works are apparently all uncommon. Indeed, except for the single reference to Ronsil for that by Fleuriot, I could find no reference to any of the three in Ronsil, Wood, Trinity, Yale and Zimmer nor in the on-line catalogs of The AMNH, BMNH, Library of Congress, NYPL, Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Trinity, LSU, Kansas nor the Smithsonian.
Rambert, Eugène (1830-1886), Robert, Léo-Paul (1851-1923)
Nos Oiseaux 23.4 x 17.5 cm. Pp. [3-5]6-200(201-202). Publisher’s red cloth with gilt title on upper cover and spine. Neuchâtel, Avanti Club, (1957).
3, Title; 4, note explaining that the work is part of a new collection created by the Avanti Club and is available in German and Italian translations in addition to this French version; 5, avant-propos; 6, biography of Rambert; 7, biography of Robert; 9-200, species accounts (48) and illustrations, each comprising four pages including the mounted color plate; 201, index of French names; 202, Imprimerie Delachaux et Niestlé, Neuchâtel. Contains 48 mounted color half-tone plates, about 15.8 x 11. 8 cm with continuous text on obverse and included in pagination.
This is a reprise of work that first appeared (1878-1880) in Les oiseaux dans la nature description pittoresque des oiseaux utiles. The plates have been reproduced in color half-tone from the original chromolithographs. Robert became a very influential ornithological artist based on the novel style he employed, which integrated his subject into their near backgrounds. Reproductions from the original work have appeared regularly since then.
Ramseyer, Joh(ann) Ul(rich) (fl. ca.1920)
Unsere / Gefiederten Freunde / Freud und Leid der Vogelwelt Three volumes. Bern, A. Francke
Erster Teil (First Part) Sixth edition ("Auflage"), 19-23 Tausend, 1928. 22.6 x 125.3 cm. Pp. [1-4]5-96; 48 ll. Publisher's unpatterned cream boards with yellow buckram backing. Printed black lettering on spine, upper cover. Block design of starling on upper cover. 1, Title; 2, printer designation, Benteli A.-G., Bern-Bümpliz; 3, foreword to first edition; 4, foreword to 6th edition; 5, text; 93, contents; 95, publisher's advertisement. Contains chromolithographed plates 1-16 and 60 unnumbered, uncolored text illustrations after Rudolf Münger and Mathilde Potterat.
Zweiter Teil First edition 1-6 Tausend, 1913. 21.7 x 14.8 cm. Pp. [1-4]5-84; 42 ll. Publisher's cream patterned boards with dull orange floral motif, dark blue lettering on spine, upper cover, design of coal tit on upper cover. 1, Title; 2, printer's designation; 3, foreword; 4, blank; 5, text; 82, contents; 84, advertisement for Erster Teil. Contains chromolithographic plates 1-16, 38 unnumbered text illustrations.
Dritter Teil First edition 1-6 Tausend, 1914. 21.7 x 14.8 cm. Pp..[1-4]5-112; 56 ll. Publisher's tan boards with vertical brown pattern, black lettering on spine and upper cover, design of cuckoo on upper cover. 1, Title; 2, printer's designation; 3, foreword; 4, blank; 5, text; 108, contents; 110, advertisements for first and second parts; 112, advertisements for other books. Contains chromolithographic plates 1-16, 48 text illustrations.
This is a work intended for children in primary school. The objective is to awaken an interest and appreciation of birds and nature. The author attempts to do this by telling a series of short stories and weaving into them considerable material about the life histories of various species. There is no formal ornithological material.
The colored and uncolored graphic material have considerable appeal. The chromolithographs show various species on limbs or reeds, occasionally with nests, but always on a white, unprinted background. The text figures relate to the story being told and do not always show birds. It is interesting to note the deterioration in quality of the chromolithographs in the volume that is a late edition.
This work is not listed in any of the major collections or libraries. It was evidently quite popular in Switzerland and there was an edition as late as 1952.
The distribution and habits of Madagascar birds / summary of the field notes of the / Mission Zoologique Franco-Anglo-Américaine à Madagascar 24.5 x 16.4 cm. Pp. 143-499(1). Original printed gray wrappers. Uncut. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. LXXII, Art. V, New York, Dec. 30, 1936 (from upper wrapper).
143, title; contents; 145, Part I, preface; 149, acknowledgments; 150, review of Madagascar ornithology; 157, field work of the Mission Zoologique (routes and collecting stations); 203, topography; 235, distribution of birds through the three biotic provinces; 294, affinities of Madagascar avifauna; 299, migration; 302, breeding seasons; 305, summary; 309, part II, list of birds with notes on their habits and distribution, Podiceps rufolavatus-Corvus albus; 495, hypothetical list (22 species). Contains text figures 1-48 including 28 maps and 20 uncolored half-tone photographic plates of habitat, all included in pagination.
The expedition collected 243 species and subspecies of a possible 277. Here, Rand gives the entire list annotated with information about the distribution, habits, nests and eggs. The island has very distinct biotic areas that determine the distribution of most of the species. Virtually all the nesting birds are endemic. Jean Delacour was the original leader of this Mission. Rand was later to participate in the Archbold expeditions to New Guinea and was the author, with E. Thomas Gilliard of The handbook of New Guinea birds (1967).
The present article is listed separately from the Bulletin by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale.
Rand, Austin L(oomer) (1905-), Gilliard, E(rnest) Thomas (1912-1965)
Handbook of / New Guinea birds 24.0 x 16.5 cm. A-V16W8(-W8)[$1, 5 signed, 23 letter alphabet lacking J, Q, U]; 311 ll. Pp. [i-iv]v-x1-612. Original publisher's blue cloth with gilt orange labeling area on spine. Top edge dyed blue. Eight leaf unpaginated "Index of Scientific and Popular Names" laid in loosely. London, Weidenfeld and Nicoloson (1967). First printing (with index laid in rather than bound).
i, Half-title; "In Memoriam" to Gilliard; iii, title; iv, copyright 1967; printer designation: Ebenezer Baylis & Son Limited, The Trinity Press, Worcester and London; v, contents; vii. list of illustrations; 1, introduction; 2, acknowledgements; 3, plan of the work; 5, synopsis of orders; 9, general information, the Papuan area; 16, migrants; 17, breeding seasons; 19, birds and man; 21, systematic accounts, Casuariidae-Ploceidae, comprising about 650 species; 603, systematic classification by orders and families; 607, references; 610, addenda; Contains: double-page uncolored map not included in pagination; uncolored half-tone plates 1-76 displaying about 131 species after Douglas E. Tibbitts and Alfred E. Gilbert printed on both sides of 24 leaves and not included in pagination; color half-tone plates 1-5 displaying 27 species by Gilbert printed on one side only and not included in pagination.
When I went to New Guinea in 1980, this was the sole comprehensive, illustrated book on the area. The only other available illustrated books were Peckover and Filewood's Birds of New Guinea and Tropical Australia (1976) and Brian Coates's Birds in Papua New Guinea (1977), each with some nice colored photographs, but neither comprehensive. The present work was authoritative although unsatisfactory for field identification. It contained identification keys and, for each of the approximately 650 species, provided a description with measurements, range, subspecies in New Guinea, information on nesting, and a section of "remarks". Unfortunately, the illustrations were incomplete and mostly uncolored. Most of the birds in New Guinea are endemic and their distribution was poorly known. Field identification remained extremely difficult until the appearance in 1986 of Birds of New Guinea by Beehler, Pratt and Zimmerman in which every bird was figured, most in color. After that, New Guinea became a popular destination for serious bird watchers .and knowledge of its avifauna increased quickly.
This work is listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity and Yale.
(Rathbone, Hannah [Mrs. Richard, neé Reynolds][1798-1878])
The / Poetry of Birds / Selected / from Various Authors; / with / Coloured Illustrations / by a Lady 23.1 x 17.3 cm. [A]4B-S4[$1 signed]; 72 ll. Pp(8)[1]2-136. Contemporary quarter-morocco with marbled boards and marbled endpapers. Spine in seven compartments separated by trenches and containing blind decorations and gilt lettering designating title and year. AEG. Unlettered, pink wrappers bound in, the upper wrapper containing an uncolored decorative lithographed floral wreath. Liverpool, George Smith and London, Ackermann & Co., 1833.
A1r, title; A1v, blank; A2r-A2v, extracts from the sacred history of the world by Sharon Turner; A2v designated vi; A3r-A3v, contents; A3v also designated vi; A4r, invocation to birds (by) Barry Cornwall; A4v, blank; 1-136, text. Contains 21 unnumbered leaves of hand-colored lithographs after originals by the author.
Mrs. Rathbone was part of the family that welcomed Audubon to Liverpool and introduced him to influential English artists and ornithologists. She figures prominently in his diaries as quoted in "Audubon and his Journals" by Maria Audubon. For example, in his entry for 28 July, 1826, Audubon writes "Later, feeling lonely and sad, I called on Mrs. R. Rathbone…She is so truly delightful a companion that had it been possible I should have made my call long instead of short". She was also a gifted artist who benefited from Audubon's personal instruction.
This volume does not contain Hannah Rathbone's name and its anonymity has led to the perception that it is much rarer than is actually the case. It consists of an anthology of poetry describing 21 common English birds each of which is illustrated by a fine small vignette showing it in an appropriate background. The two contents pages overlap at Skylark which is listed as a major heading for each. Bibliographers who assume that each major species heading corresponds to an illustration can be misled by this as apparently were Mullens and Swann, who call for 22 plates instead of 21.
Bradley Martin #1815; Jackson, Dictionary of Bird Artists, p. 403; Mullens & Swann, p. 485. Unlisted in Ayer, McGill, Trinity and Yale catalogs.
Bright Feathers or Some North American Birds of Beauty 31 x 24.5 cm. Pp. [i-v]vi-vii(1)[9]10-24[25]26-41[42-43]44-62[63-65]66-81[82-83]84-88. Five parts in original printed wrappers. Uncut and partially unopened. Auburn, New York, by the author (press of Knapp & Peck), 1880 (part I), 1881(part II) and 1882 (parts III-V).
i, title in red and black; iii, dedication; v, introduction; 9-88, text. Contains five fine hand-colored engraved plates, five uncolored decorative initials, five uncolored decorative pieces and six text figures two of which are hand-colored, all by the author.
This homespun work, which ends in the middle of a word, is exceedingly rare. It describes five species, Purple Finch, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Goldfinch, Yellow Warbler and Redstart. The descriptions borrow considerably from earlier authors and are written in flowery and rather avuncular prose. The author intended to cover at least 10 species, illustrating one per part, but not necessarily including the whole complementary text in that part. Thus, part V, the last one published, ends in the midst of the text for the Redstart and actually in mid word; i. e. “consider-” (for “considerable”). Each part cost $1.00 which was not cheap in 1880.
The graphics in this work are astonishingly well done both with respect to art and reproduction. The hand-coloring of the plates is particularly good. I believe that the plates were produced by engraving on metal but there are no plate margins so perhaps they could have been done on wood. The text illustrations are wood engravings.
Wood, p. 529; Zimmer, p. 500. OCLC locates eight copies
(Ray, John [1628-1705]), Salerne, (François, d. 1760)
L'Histoire Naturelle / Éclaircie / Dans une de ses Parties Principales, / l'Ornithologie, / Qui Traite / des Oiseaux / de Terre, de Mer, et de Rivière, / Tant de nos Climats que de Pays Étrangers. / Ouvrage traduit du Latin du Synopsis avium de Ray, augmentéd'un / grand nombre de descriptons & de remarques historiques sur le carac- / tere des oiseaux, leur industrie, & leurs ruses. 29.8 x 22.2 cm. Laid paper, no catchwords (save one). 4o. [a]4(-a1[?])b4A-Mmm4[$1, 2 signed]; 239 ll. Pp. [iii-v]vi-xii[xiii-xvi][1]2-464. Contemporary gilt, triple-ruled Russia with gilt corner decorations. Spine with five raised bands, red morocco lettering piece in second compartment, others elaborately decorated with gilt ornithological tools. Gilt dentelles. Blue marbled endpapers. Red marbled edges. Paris, chez Debure, 1767.
iii, Title partly printed in red; iv, blank; v-vi, dedication; vii, avertissement; ix, contents; xiii, approbation dated 16 July, 1761 (sic [?]); privilege du Roi, registered 1 July, 1766; xv, additions and corrections; xvi, note to binder re plate placement. Contains uncolored copper-engraved plates 1-31, including elaborate decorative frontispiece, drawn and engraved by Martinet.
The pagination suggests that a half title was either intended but not included, or was omitted from this copy.
This work is one in a distinguished series on various aspects of natural history characterized by a title that begins "L'Histoire Naturelle Éclaircie dans une de ses Parties Principales…". I believe that the first of the series was "La Lithologie et la Conchyliologie…", Paris, 1842 by A. J. Dezallier d'Argenville.
Although the title page implies that the translation from Ray's Synopsis Methodica Avium (1713) is the main feature of this work, the author has added much material based on later works including those by Linnaeus and Klein and the result is a good overview of ornithology of the era. It attempts to cover all the known families and discusses representative species from each. The book is contemporary with the Planches Enluminées and Brisson's magnum opus and has probably unjustly suffered by comparison. Martinet's illustrations for all three are of similar high quality. Plate 25 is one of my favorite of all illustrations. It depicts a Flamingo and a Razor-billed Auk standing together in a marshy area. Martinet was very knowledgeable about birds (he subsequently wrote and illustrated a large work of his own) and I'm quite certain he was making fun of someone when he conceived this highly unlikely, but very amusing, tableau.
It is interesting that many birds, such as tits, woodpeckers etc, are properly placed together here as they had been by Belon and by the ancients, whereas others are contained in very contrived groupings. Thus, the Nightingale falls under the heading of "diverse small birds with tail of a single color" (my translation).
This book was also issued by the publishers in a colored state. The coloring is quite innacurate and this is one of the few instances where I think the uncolored version of an ornithological book is more pleasing than the colored.
Wood, p. 530; Zimmer, p. 501. Also listed by AMNH, Harvard, Trinity and Yale but not by Cornell.
A / Collection / of / English Words / Not Generally used, with their / Significations and Original, in two / Alphabetical Catalogues. / The one such as are proper to / the Northern, the other to the / Southern Counties. With Catalogues of English Birds, / and Fishes; And an Account of the / preparing and refining such Metals / and Minerals as are gotten / in England. 14.5 x 9.2 cm. Laid paper, catchwords. 8o. [A]6(-A1-A3)B-K8L4(-L4)[$1, 2, 3, 4 signed]; 78 ll. Pp. 1-28, 26, 30-77, 76-77, 80, 79-92, 39, 94-138, 136, 140-142, 173-176, 777, 178 (text is complete and should be paginated 1-150). Later half brown calf and marbled boards. Spine with five raised bands, gilt red morocco lettering piece in second and fourth compartments, blind floral design in others. Old marbled edges. London, printed by H. Bruges for Tho. Burrell, 1674.
π1r, Title printed in red and black; π1v, blank; π2r-π3v, concluding leaves of "To the Reader"(lacking three earlier preliminary leaves); 1, a collection of local words; 81, a catalogue of English birds; 97, a catalog of fishes; 113, production of silver; 120, production of tin; 127, production of iron; 132, production of wire; 135, production of vitriol (in Latin); 138, production of lead; 136, alom work; 142, production of salt; 178, errata. Contains one enlarged initial letter with floral decoration. Old catalog entry for this copy pasted to one of two terminal blank leaves. That entry describes the copy, incorrectly I think, as lacking only one instead of three leaves.
In my view, this uncommon and highly regarded book is most distinguished by the vast quantity of errors by the printer in pagination.
Having vented my anger at the difficulty in reconciling the signatures and pagination, I must say that the work is of special interest to me because it contains an eight page annotated list of 170 species of British birds. This is only the second such list, the first having been written by Christopher Merrett and published initially in 1666. The present work anticipates the classification adopted by Willughby and Ray in their great work first published two years later. Many species are identified by both common and Latin names. Casey Wood remarks (p. 529) "The important parts of this work are the early lists of birds and fishes". On the other hand for an entirely different perspective about what is important in this book, we read in Wheldon & Wesley catalogue 140 (1977), item 159, that "Skeat in preparing a new edition in 1874 wrote 'the most important book ever published on the subject of English dialects(up to 1800)'." A metallurgist might supply yet another opinion.
Mullens and Swann (p. 487-488) provide a "collation" of this book which gives the figure of 14 for preliminary pages (seven leaves) whereas there are only three here. However, the description in the Wheldon & Wesley catalog indicates that one of those leaves is an initial binder's blank (there are two such terminal blanks in this copy) and I think there are probably three lacking printed leaves here.
Wood, p. 529. Also listed by BM(NH), Harvard, Mullens and Swann, p. 487; Oxford, Ripley and Scribner, p. 236. Unlisted by AMNH, Cornell, LOC, Smithsonian, Trinity, Zimmer.
Edward Lear's / parrots // with twelve reproductions of coloured / lithographs from Lear's Psittacidae 24.7 x 15.7 cm. [1-6]7-32. Original publisher's blue buckram backed yellow boards with printing and oval macaw design on upper cover. Pictorial dust jacket repeating color and design of upper board and with original price of 8s 6d on upper flap. London, Duckworth, 1949.
1, Half-title; 2, blank; 3, title page with title printed in red; 4, printer designation: W. S. Cowell Ltd., Ipswich; 5, foreword by E. L. Warre of the Library of the Zoological Society; 7, text and plates; 32, note, acknowldegments and a few references. Contains 12 unnumbered text plates printed in color half-tone on rectos with running text on versos and included in pagination.
Edward Lear (1812-1888) published his Illustrations of the family Psittacidae or parrots in 12 parts, 1830-1832. The book was the first to contain hand-colored lithographs in large format and was the inspiration for Gould who used the same style for his entire opus. Lear continued as a wildlife artist for a relatively short time and then devoted himself to nonsense rhymes and landscape paintings executed from sketches made during various voyages. The present work provides an account of Lear's early life and the production of the parrot monograph.
Since few people knew of, or could afford the ornithological monographs that contained Lear's illustrations, his genius as a wildlife artist was forgotten for almost a century until an interest in it was rekindled by this little book. Subsequently, his works have been reproduced in many books and he has become recognized as one of the finest wildlife artists of the 19th century. In my view, his best work was done when he could examine living subjects thoroughly as was the case with his parrots, which he studied in the Zoological Gardens, and with the birds and mammals at Lord Stanley's estate which he depicted in Gleanings from the menagerie at Knowsley Hall (1846).
Listed by Cornell, Harvard, Trinity and Yale. Not listed by AMNH.
Reader’s Digest Association Limited and Automobile Association (Richard Fitter, Consultant Editor)
Book of / British / birds 27.8 x 16.2 cm. Pp. [1-5]6-471[472]. Original color pictorial boards showing Tawny Owl. Brown buckram spine with gilt lettering. Laid endpapers. London, Drive Publications Limited, (1969), stated first edition.
1, Half-title; 2, designed by Drive Publications for Reader’s Digest and the Automobile Association; first edition; 3, expression of gratitude to those involved in the production including consultant editor, Richard Fitter, 16 authors and eight artists, primarily Raymond Harris Ching for full-colour portraits, Robert Gillmor, and Hermann Heinzel for other studies; 4, contents; land of birds; 16, naming the birds by colour and flight; the British birds, 217 species grouped by habitat; 267, guide to rarer (109) birds; 280, introduced birds (eight); 280, conquest of air, land, and sea; 325, bird society; 397, birds and man; 425, where to see birds; 459, counting and listing birds; , including the rarest on record; 467, index (English names); 472, acknowledgments.
There are 217 unnumbered almost full-page half-tone color portraits after Ching; numerous colored identification keys and rarer birds after Heinzel, and fine uncolored vignettes of the 217 common species after Gilmoor. There are also many other colored vignettes and small figures scattered throughout. There is also a distribution map for each of these species.
This book provides yet another example of a beautiful inexpensive volume about British birds intended for a popular audience. It was here that Raymond Ching made his first spectacular appearance on the British bird-watching scene and the other illustrations, as well as the text, are also authoritative. It’s difficult to categorize this book. It is certainly too big to be a field guide, yet the species accounts are less comprehensive than one might expect in a handbook. Perhaps it might best be considered a textbook of British ornithology.
OCLC lists more than 400 locations.
L’Oiseau chez lui / Livre Couleur du Temps / Oiseaux de Mer / Et de Rivages 41.0 x 32.0 cm. 2o in fours. Pp. (8, i.e. [i-viii])[1]2-80; 44 ll. Unbound folded broadsheets in 11 gatherings of four leaves, printed and lithographed gray wrappers for 10 fascicules all included in publisher’s printed white card folder. Paris, Les Presses Universitaires de France, (1928-)1930.
[i], title; [ii], blank; [iii], half-title; [iv], limitation statement (515 copies); [v], préface; [vii], table des chapitres; [viii], tables des lithographies et des planches; 1, mer et rivages; 9, l’ilot rocheux; 19, caves marines; 25, pylônes; 33, falaises; 39, la cathédrale; 45, marée basse; 55, dunes; 63, steppes et lagunes. Contains 105 unnumbered lithographed text drawings and 10 unnumbered plates in colored collotype, all after Reboussin. Each plate has an associated tissue leaf with identifying letter-press. Neither the plate nor its accompanying tissue leaf is included in the pagination.
This work was issued in 10 “fascicules”, the first containing the four preliminary leaves and an additional gathering, the other nine containing one gathering. Each gathering contained one colored plate save that containing the preliminary leaves. The préface is by Camille Mauclair and extols Reboussin as an artist who depicted living creatures as part of their natural environment. For each of the headings listed above, Reboussin has written an anecdotal narrative word painting of a birding experience to accompany and complement his text pictures and colored plates. “..ici les images verbales correspondent étroitement aux images graphiques” (Mauclair). Some of the characteristic species of the particular habitat are then described in technical terms by J. Rapine.
This is an exquisite, and beautifully produced work. The pictures are vivid, expressionistic tableaux and the influence of Leo Paul Robert is evident. They remind me also of those by Gitz-Johansen in the later work by Finn Salomonsen on the Birds of Greenland.
This is a remarkable copy in a completely original state.
Ronsil, 2513; Trinity, p. 196; Wood, p. 530 (incomplete); Yale, p. 237.
Reboussin, Roger (1881-1965), Jeanson, Pierre (compiler, editor, publisher)
Les Oiseaux de France 32.4 x 24.1 cm. Pp. [1-6]7-381[382-384]; 192 ll. Original publisher's gray cloth, white lettering on upper cover and spine, facsimile Reboussin autograph in red on upper cover. Gray endpapers with facsimile book plate of Marcel Jeanson. Pictorial dust jacket, similar pictorial slip case. Paris, Pierre Jeanson, 1999. Distributed by Les Amis de Reboussin.
1, Half-title; 3, quotations; 5, title; 6, copyright; 7, explanatory note by Pierre Jeanson; 8, acknowledgements; 9, draft of preface by Marcel Jeanson; 13, draft of preface by Reboussin; 17, remembrance of Reboussin by Claude Aguttes, falconer; 19, les rapaces; 6,1es palmides; 101, les echassiers; 167, les colombins; 173, les gallinaces; 183, les grimpeurs; 201, les passereaux; 351, species not recorded in France for at least 50 years; 353, alphabetical list (French names) of species; 359, European species not considered French; 361, systematic classification and index (Latin order, family, French species); 375, artistic appreciation of Reboussin by F. Goy from previous publication; 379, artistic appreciation of Reboussin by Roby Wolff; 381, bibliography; 383, printer designation: Grafica Editoriale, Turin. Contains uncolored text portraits of Marcel Jeanson and of Reboussin, one colored text illustration and approximately 389 colored pictures comprising 13 double-page, 210 full-page and 166 as two per page. These are signed by Reboussin and many are dated 1935-1964.
Marcel Jeanson, the well known French hunter, bird watcher, bibliophile and connoisseur of ornithological art, in 1935 commissioned his friend, the artist Reboussin, to paint every species of bird known to occur in France. Jeanson died in 1942 but Reboussin continued with the series which apparently became the property of Jeanson's son Pierre. The paintings were donated to the Musée de la Chassse et de la Nature in Paris. These pictures are here published for the first time by Pierre Jeanson. Reboussin was very much a disciple of Leo Paul Robert and these beautiful pictures depict vivid, dynamic birds in fine impressionistic backgrounds.
Most of the book is presented in French and English and there are a few errors of translation. The classification is a bit archaic. But this is a book of art, a pleasure to possess, and an important contribution to French ornithological iconography.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 1 / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey / East of the Rockies Oblong 8.3 x 14.2 cm. [1]82-168[$1 signed]; 128 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-254(2, advertisement for binoculars). Publisher's pictorial card with colored vignette of great blue heron on upper cover, black lettering on upper cover and spine. Worcester, Chas K. Reed, 1906. Contained within rare original color pictorial box also depicting great blue heron.
1, Blank; 2, half-tone photographic frontispiece of Ruffed Grouse; 3, title; 4, copyright 1906; Press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, N.Y. 5, preface; 8, topography of a bird (line drawing); 9, overall classification and characteristics of the 12 orders covered in the book; 16, title; 17, text; 249, index. Contains 232 unnumbered (partly) color-printed plates after the author on the side of text pages, each depicting the single described species on that page. Also contains numerous unnumbered line cuts illustrating anatomical parts and characteristics of various orders and the families they comprise.
This is the rare initial printing of the first edition of Part 1 of Reed's field guide. It can be identified as such by the presence of the year of publication on the title page as well as on the copyright page. This is the only copy of which I have ever heard that is contained in its original printed box and it is in immaculate condition. I have another copy of what is presumably also the first printing and is identical to this one save that it bears the imprint “W. B. Clarke & Co., Boston”. And I have yet another example of the first edition, almost identical to this one save that it lacks the year of publication and bears the Clarke imprint.
Although the water bird guide is called "Part 1", that dealing with land birds and called "Part 2" was actually first printed earlier, in 1905. Reed was the son of a publisher, Charles K. Reed, and was a prolific publisher of popular ornithological, and to a lesser extent, botanical material. His bird guides fit easily into the pocket and were the first widely used bona fide field guides anywhere. The most popular was the guide for land birds, Bird Guide, Part 2, and he wrote in 1912 that 300,000 copies of that work had been issued by that time. The bird guides were reprinted repeatedly until after the second world war when they were superceded by the Peterson and Pough guides.
Little has been written about Reed and he has not received the recognition he deserves for popularizing the study of nature in the first third of the 20th century. Part of this is due to his early death. His knowledge was broad and he was a sound artist. His first published book was the Color Key to North American Birds with Frank M. Chapman and collaboration with the latter, even though in the role of an artist, is a strong indication that Reed was very able.
It is not generally recognized that the Reed eastern guides for both land and water birds appeared in two quite different early 20th century copyrighted versions which should be regarded as editions. The former was published in 1905 and1906 and reprinted until 1909 when it was superceded by the second edition. The first edition of the water birds was issued in 1906 (i. e. this copy), the second in 1910. There were significant textural differences but the most important change was in the illustrations. In the first edition, the pictures were printed in color whereas in later editions they were produced photo-mechanically. The images in this original printing are very simple so it must have been difficult to get them on the reproductive matrix which does not appear to have been wood or stone. The coloring is equally basic, involving only a few tints, and the registration is exceptionally poor. The resulting pictures barely appear to be colored in many instances and are exceedingly crude representations. The only other work with similarly printed figures is the Color Key… which, like the early Reed guides, was printed by the Press of A. M. Eddy that apparently specialized in the technique which may have been "zincography". From 1909 on, the Reed guides contained pictures that exhibited more detail and background and were colored photo-mechanically. I consider the latter a second edition but there may have been more than one later edition. Doubleday was the main publisher of later editions although Charles K. Reed may have issued early examples. Early Reed guides were also published under imprints of W. B. Clarke of Boston and Musson of Toronto.
Trinity, p. 196; Wood, later edition; Zimmer, later edition; Yale, unlisted; original edition present in on-line catalogs of Harvard, Cornell. AMNH lists only later edition.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912), Harvey, Harry F., Brasher, R(eginald) I. ("Rex", [1869-1960])
Western Bird Guide / Birds of the Rockies and West to the Pacific 14.3 x 8.4 cm. [1]82-168[$1, signed]; 128 ll. Pp. [1-5]6-255(1). Original publisher's tan card, half-tone vignette of Bald Eagle on upper cover, black lettering on upper cover and spine. Presented in original publisher's pictorial box with colored picture of Brown Pelican on upper cover. Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, Page & Co., 1913. Engraved and printed by Quadri-Color Co., New York.
1, Blank; 2, colored frontispiece by Reed of Wood Duck; 3, title; 4, copyright; 5, blank; 6, explanations; 7, topography of a bird (line drawing); 8, half-title; 9, systematic text; 240, index; 253, advertisements for Chas. K. Reed, Worcester.
This is the last, least common, and best produced of the Reed guides. The responsibilities of the three authors are not spelled out but Brasher clearly made a big contribution to the pictures which are rather attractive and well produced. This was amongst Brasher's first commissions. Unlike the two Reed guides covering eastern birds, this one did not go through a first, color-printed edition and the present rare first printing contains pictures that were reproduced by the four-color photomechanical technique. This work encompasses many more species than the separate works on eastern land and water birds so that each plate depicts two or three instead of a single species. Information supplied for each species includes English and Latin names; AOU checklist number; length; brief description; voice; nest and eggs; and range. This book, like the comparable ones covering eastern birds, was a bona fide field guide that fit easily into even a small pocket. It never approached the eastern guides in popularity.
Later printings listed by Wood, Zimmer, AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Yale; unlisted by Trinity.
Reed, C. Albert, editor (Volume 1; Chester A. Reed, volumes 2-5; 1876-1912)
American ornithology. / For the home and school Five volumes. 22.5 x 15.3 cm. Publisher's blind-ruled green cloth with centrally framed, circular mounted colored figure of a bird (different for each volume) on upper cover. Gilt lettering on upper cover and spine. Worcester, Chas. K. Reed. Printed by A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.
Vol. 1. / 1901 Pp. [i-xii][1]2-246. i, Blank; ii, colored frontispiece; iii, poem; iv, printer's engraved logo; v, title; vi, blank; vii, index; x, blank; xi, diagram of a bird; xii, color chart; 1, text, Vol. I (Roman, sic), Nos. 1-12. Contains: two unnumbered (frontispiece, color chart) colored plates; 22 full-page, uncolored half-tone pictures of birds, often including eggs (drawings, photographs) and numerous uncolored half-tone text illustrations and designs.
Vol. 2. / 1902 Pp. [i-viii][1]2-386. i, Title; ii, printer's logo; iii, list of illustrations (unnumbered, about 200); viii, blank; 1, text, Vol. II, Nos. 1-12; 381, index (general including common names of birds). Contains: 24 colored plates including "Identification Chart(s)" 1-11, each comprising two colored plates; 57 unnumbered, uncolored full-page drawings and photographs.
Vol. 3. / 1903 Pp. (2)[i-iii]iv-xii[1]2-410. Unpaginated leaf: recto, blank; verso, colored frontispiece; i, title; ii, printer's logo; iii, index; ix, list of (unnumbered, about 200) illustrations; 1, text, Vol. III, Nos. 1-12. Contains: 33 colored plates including "Identification Chart(s)" 12-23, each comprising two colored plates; 10 unnumbered, engraved, color-printed text illustrations; 45 unnumbered uncolored full-page drawings or photographs; numerous uncolored text illustrations, vignettes and designs.
Volume 4. / 1904 Pp. [i-iv][1]2-342. i, Blank; ii, uncolored photographic frontispiece; iii, title; iv, printer's logo; 1, text, Vol. IV, Nos. 1-12; 336, index of common names, poems and illustrations. Contains: 20 colored plates including one map and "Identification Chart 24" comprising two colored plates; eight engraved, color-printed text illustrations or decorative vignettes; 11 colored or decorated initial letters; 32 full-page drawings or photographs; numerous uncolored text illustrations, vignettes and designs.
Volume 5. / 1905 Pp. [i-ii][1-3]4-230, 131-155 (printer's error; should be 231-255)256-314. i, Title; ii, printer's logo; 1, blank; 2, colored frontispiece; 3, text, Vol. V, Nos. 1-12; 309, index. Contains: 11 colored, or partially colored plates; one color-printed text illustration; 36 full-page uncolored drawings or photographs; numerous uncolored text photographs, drawings or designs.
Most of the colored plates were engraved and color printed by the unique method used by A. M. Eddy as well for Chapman and Reed's Color key to North American birds (1903) and for Reed's early (pre-1909) field guides. The "Identification Charts" all appeared in the Color key… although their texts were somewhat altered. There are examples of color gravure and color half-tone in addition to the color-printed engravings. Almost all of the colored plates contain printed matter on their versos. Most, but not all of the drawings and photographs were done by Reed.
An additional seven issues, Jan-June and a combined July-Aug were published in the unfinished Volume 6 of 1906. The publication was then discontinued, probably because Reed became preoccupied with his "Guides".
The present periodical is replete with various kinds of written entertainment such as "enigmas" as well as stories for children combined with serious characterizations in word and picture of numerous North American birds and even some early articles by Harry Caldwell on the birds of southern China, to evolve eventually (1931) in the Caldwells' South China birds. There is much experimentation with the production of colored plates. Much of the artwork by Reed does not appear in his later publications and some of it is very good. A subscription for the first year was 50 cents but this was raised to one dollar for subsequent years.
Burns, #12; Wood, p. 190. Also listed by Cornell, Harvard, Yale. Not listed by AMNH, Trinity.
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1875-1912)(editor)
American ornithology / for the home and school 22.0 x 15.0 cmm. Volumes 5 and 6 bound with all original green printed (partially in red) wrappers (10c per copy, 1¢ per year) in one volume. Binder’s red cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Worcester, Chas. K. Reed publisher.
Vol. 5. 12 Issues, pp. 1-314 plus advertisements. Described elsewhere in this catalog.
Vol. 6., No. 1. January, 1906. Pp. (3, advertisements)[1](unpaginated blank page)[2]3-24(4, advertisements). Contains half-tone colored plate of Carolina Paroquet by Reed, 12 unnumbered, uncolored half-tone text photographs and uncolored line sketch or wood cut signed M. G. Hinds (this as heading to “Bird Chats…” feature to appear in all issues.
No. 2. February Pp. (3, advertisements)[25](unpaginated color-printed plate of Goldfinch by Reed)26-48(4, advertisements). Contains color-printed plates of Golfinch and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker by Reed with printing on obverse, six uncolored text half-tone photographs.
No. 3. March Pp. (3, advertisements)[49](unpaginated page with uncolored half-tone photograph)50-72(4, advertisements). Contains unattributed color-printed plate of Blue Jay, six uncolored text photographs.
No. 4. April Lacking from this volume.
No. 5. May Pp. (3, advertisements)[97](unpaginated page with uncolored photograph)98-120(4, advertisements). Contains Color-printed plates of Prairie Horned Lark and Canadian Warbler by Reed ( as usual included in pagination and with printing on obverse), nine uncolored text photographs.
No. 6. June Pp. (3, advertisements)[121(unpaginated color-printed plate of Passenger Pigeon by Reed)122-144(4, advertisements. Contains one color-printed plate, six text photographs and three uncolored tailpieces.
No. 7. July and August (3, advertisements)[145](unpaginated uncolored photograph)146-176(4, advertisements). Contains color-printed plate by Reed of three Kingbird species printed on obverse and included in pagination and 18 text photographs.
Volume 6, the last of this unusual journal was never completed and its seven numbers were never bound separately by the publisher so it is much more difficult to find than the first five volumes. Where I use the term “color-printed”, I intend to denote the peculiar type of coloring done by A. M. Eddy of Albion New York for the very early (prior to 1909) Reed guides and Chapman and Reed’s Color key to North American birds (1903)
The very last number of this journal, number 7, was the first and only example of a new intended bimonthly publication schedule with each number costing 20c instead of 10c.
It is worth noting that part 2 (land birds) of the Reed Guide was first advertised in the November 1905 issue of this journal and was claimed by Reed in number 7 of 1906 to be already in its 27th thousand. Part 1 (water birds) was first advertised in the February, 1906 issue. The original costs of each were 50c in cloth and 75c in leather. Reed probably abandoned the present journal because of the increasing demands of his field guide operation.
This journal was a colorful medley of heterogeneous contributions mostly intended for children. Some of the plates and photographs were quite attractive and there is a timely article on the Passenger Pigeon with a colored plate by Reed in the June 1906 issue.
Listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale.
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 1 / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey / East of the Rockies Oblong 8.3 x 14.2 cm. [1]82-168[$1 signed]; 128 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-254(2, advertisement for binoculars). Publisher's pictorial card with colored vignette of Great Blue Heron on upper cover, black lettering on upper cover and spine. Boston, W. B. Clarke Co., (1906). Press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, N.Y.
1, Blank; 2, half-tone photographic frontispiece of Ruffed Grouse; 3, title; 4, copyright 1906; 5, preface; 8, topography of a bird (line drawing); 9, overall classification and characteristics of the 12 orders covered in the book; 16, title; 17, text; 249, index. Contains 232 unnumbered (partly) color-printed plates after the author on the side of text pages, each depicting the single described species on that page. Also contains numerous unnumbered line cuts illustrating anatomical parts and characteristics of various orders and the families they comprise.
This is the rare first edition of Part 1 of Reed's field guide. It lacks a date on the title page whereas another copy I possess has the date (1906) there as well as on the copyright page so this copy is not the initial printing. Although the water bird guide is called "Part 1", that dealing with land birds and called "Part 2" was actually first printed earlier, in 1905. Reed was the son of a publisher, Charles K. Reed, and was a prolific publisher of popular ornithological, and to a lesser extent, botanical material. His bird guides fit easily into the pocket and were the first widely used bona fide field guides anywhere. The most popular was the guide for land birds, Bird Guide, Part 2, and he wrote in 1912 that 300,000 copies of that work had been issued by that time. The bird guides were reprinted repeatedly until after the second world war when they were superceded by the Peterson and Pough guides.
Little has been written about Reed and he has not received the recognition he deserves for popularizing the study of nature in the first third of the 20th century. Part of this is due to his early death. His knowledge was broad and he was a sound artist. His first published book was the Color Key to North American Birds with Frank M. Chapman and collaboration with the latter, even though in the role of an artist, is a strong indication that Reed was very able.
It is not generally recognized that the Reed eastern guides for both water and land birds, appeared in two quite different early 20th century copyrighted versions which should be regarded as editions. The first of land birds was published in 1905 and1906 and reprinted until 1909 when it was superceded by the second. The first of water birds was 1906, the second, 1910. There were significant textural differences but the most important change was in the illustrations. In the first edition, the pictures were printed in color whereas in later editions they were produced photo-mechanically. The images in this original printing are very simple so it must have been difficult to get them on the reproductive matrix which does not appear to have been wood or stone. The coloring is equally basic, involving only a few tints, and the registration is exceptionally poor. The resulting pictures barely appear to be colored in many instances and are exceedingly crude representations. The only other work with similarly printed figures is the Color Key… which, like the early Reed guides, was printed by the Press of A. M. Eddy that apparently specialized in the technique which may have been "zincography". From 1909 on, the Reed guides contained pictures that exhibited more detail and background and were colored photo-mechanically. I consider the latter a second edition but there may have been more than one later edition. Doubleday was the main publisher of later editions although Charles K. Reed may have issued early examples. Early Reed guides were also published under imprints of W. B. Clarke of Boston, as here, and Musson of Toronto.
Trinity, p. 196; Wood, later edition; Zimmer, later edition; Yale, unlisted; original edition present in on-line catalogs of Harvard, Cornell. AMNH lists only later edition.
Reed, Chester, A(lbert) (1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 2 / Land Birds East of the Rockies / From Parrots to Bluebirds Oblong, 14.2 x 8,3 cm. [1]82-138χ 5[$1 signed]; 109 ll. Pp. (6)[1]2-197[198-202](10, advertisements, thicker off-white paper). Original publisher's tan card with colored vignette of Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover, black lettering on upper cover and spine. Worcester, Mass., Chas. K. Reed, 1908(1906). Printed by Press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.
11r Blank; 11v half-tone photographic frontispiece of chipping sparrows; 12r title; 12v copyright; 13r preface; 1, introduction; 8, topography of a bird (line illustration); 9, title; 10, explanations; 11, systematic text; 198-202, index.Contains 187 framed (partly) colored plates each depicting a single species and adjacent to relevant text. Also contains half-tone photograph of House Wren on second title page.
This guide was the most widely used of the Reed guides and Reed wrote in another of his works that more than 300,000 copies of this title had been issued by 1912. The first edition of the book may be distinguished by the fact that its illustrations reflect a manual method of color printing that was uniquely used by the Press of A. M. Eddy of Albion, N. Y., and may have been "zincography". This edition was issued from 1906 to 1909 when it was superseded by what I call the second edition that had textural changes and contained more complex pictures that were produced photo-mechanically using the four-color process. The latter was reprinted many times and remained in use until after the second world war at which time it was succeeded by the Peterson and Pough guides. The present example is a later printing of the first (1906) edition, all printings of which are scarce. It is not a reprint, strictly speaking, because the lack of an explicit "1" on page 1 distinguishes it from the original printing.
For each species, Reed supplies English and Latin names, AOU checklist number, length, a brief description, notes, nest and eggs, and range.
Trinity, p. 196; Cornell and Harvard on-line catalogs; only later editions listed by AMNH, Yale, Wood, Zimmer.
Bird Guide / Land Birds East of the Rockies / From Parrots to Bluebirds 14.3 x 8.2 cm. Pp. [1-16]17-228(8, designated for "field notes")(2, advertisements for Doubleday nature books); 119 ll. Original publisher's imitation red leather, gilt Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover, gilt lettering on upper cover and spine. Original publisher's printed pictorial slipcase with colored illustration of Blue Grosbeak on upper cover. Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday & Co., 1945(1906, 1909).
1, 2, blank; 3, title; 4, copyright; 5, preface; 7, introduction; 13, topography of a bird (line drawing); 14, explanations; 15, half-title; 16, blank; 17, text; 209, field key for identification of eastern land birds; 214, classification; 223-228, index. Contains 192 colored plates depicting one or two species adjacent to the relevant text. Also contains one uncolored photograph (on first page of preface).
This is a late printing of the second edition of this field guide. As a child, I used an earlier printing of 1940 and I can testify to the benefits of Peterson's field guide as compared to this one because I tested them together in the field. At the time, this guide contained many more colored figures than the contemporary Peterson which was the second edition of 1939 with only four colored plates so it was not immediately obvious which of the to might be more useful. The last edition of this book was published in 1951.
The text in this work provides English and Latin names; the AOU checklist number; length; a brief description of appearance and habits; a brief description of song, nest and eggs; and the range.
It is interesting to compare the illustrations in this book with those of the first edition in which they were simpler and reproduced by an unusual manual method of color printing. Hard as it was to use the present book for field identification, it must have been considerably more difficult to use the original.
Doubleday was also the publisher of the Pough guide, the land bird volume of which was first issued in 1945. Ironically, that work, which, along with Peterson's certainly spelled the end for this one, is included here in the Doubleday advertisement.
Trinity, p. 196; Wood, p. 531; Yale, 237; Zimmer, 504 (various second edition reprints).
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912)
Birds / of Eastern North America 17.6 x 12.7 cm. Pp. [i-ii]iii-xiv[15-16]17-456(457-458) advertisement for binocularss); 229 ll. Original publisher's green pebbled cloth with gilt goldfinch on upper cover, gilt and black block lettering on upper cover and spine, black block paneling on upper cover. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1912.
i, Title; ii, Copyright, Chas. K. Reed, Worcester, 1912; iii, preface; v, contents; vi, topography; vii, introduction; 15, half-title; 16, blank; 17, order, family and species accounts; 425, how to study birds; 431, local lists, example, New England; 438, index; 452, notice of other books by Chester A. Reed; 457, advertisement for binoculars; 458, printer designation: Garden City Press, Garden City, N. Y.. Contains colored full-page photographic plate of juvenile blue jays as frontispiece not included in pagination. Contains full-page sketch of bird topography (page vi). Contains 404 colored illustrations, 6.1 x 4.2 cm at the upper outer corner of consecutive text leaves depicting a total of about 440 species.
This work is a combined and somewhat expanded version of the revised (i, e. 1909) editions of Reed's two "Bird Guide"s devoted respectively to water and land birds. It was printed by Doubleday's printer (Garden City Press) and the colored figures were produced in half-tone as opposed to the bizarre colored printing by A. M. Eddy of Albion N. Y. that was used in the first editions of Reed guides. The book includes a length measurement, physical and range descriptions and a variable but superficial life history. Reed was the most important American figure in publicizing the popular study of ornithology during the first third of the 29th century but has been strangely ignored by bibliographers and ornithological historians, perhaps due to his premature death.
The spine of this volume advertises "408 colored plates".
Trinity, p. 196; Wood, p. 531. Not listed by Zimmer, Ripley and Scribner.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 1 / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey / East of the Rockies Oblong 8.3 x 14.2 cm. [1]82-168[$1 signed]; 128 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-254(2, advertisement for binoculars). Publisher's pictorial card with colored vignette of Great Blue Heron on upper cover, black lettering on upper cover and spine. Boston, W. B. Clarke Co., 1906. Press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, N.Y.
1, Blank; 2, half-tone photographic frontispiece of Ruffed Grouse; 3, title; 4, copyright 1906; 5, preface; 8, topography of a bird (line drawing); 9, overall classification and characteristics of the 12 orders covered in the book; 16, title; 17, text; 249, index. Contains 232 unnumbered (partly) color-printed plates after the author on the side of text pages, each depicting the single described species on that page. Also contains numerous unnumbered line cuts illustrating anatomical parts and characteristics of various orders and the families they comprise.
This is the rare initial printing of the first edition of Part 1 of Reed's field guide. It can be identified as such by the presence of the year of publication on the title page as well as on the copyright page. I have another example of the first edition, almost identical to this one save that it lacks the year of publication on the title page which is spaced differently and contains a horizontal black line between the printed lines "Editor of American Ornithology" and "W. B. Clarke Co." The two examples also differ somewhat in the coloring of the backgrounds of the prints, more of those in the present copy being gray rather than blue compared with the other.
Although the water bird guide is called "Part 1", that dealing with land birds and called "Part 2" was actually first printed earlier, in 1905. Reed was the son of a publisher, Charles K. Reed, and was a prolific publisher of popular ornithological, and to a lesser extent, botanical material. His bird guides fit easily into the pocket and were the first widely used bona fide field guides anywhere. The most popular was the guide for land birds, Bird Guide, Part 2, and he wrote in 1912 that 300,000 copies of that work had been issued by that time. The bird guides were reprinted repeatedly until after the second world war when they were superceded by the Peterson and Pough guides.
Little has been written about Reed and he has not received the recognition he deserves for popularizing the study of nature in the first third of the 20th century. Part of this is due to his early death. His knowledge was broad and he was a sound artist. His first published book was the Color Key to North American Birds with Frank M. Chapman and collaboration with the latter, even though in the role of an artist, is a strong indication that Reed was very able.
It is not generally recognized that the Reed eastern guides for both water and land birds, appeared in two quite different early 20th century copyrighted versions which should be regarded as editions. The first of land birds was published in 1905 and1906 and reprinted until 1909 when it was superceded by the second. The first of water birds was published in 1906, the second in 1910. There were significant textural differences but the most important change was in the illustrations. In the first edition, the pictures were printed in color whereas in later editions they were produced photo-mechanically. The images in this original printing are very simple so it must have been difficult to get them on the reproductive matrix which does not appear to have been wood or stone. The coloring is equally basic, involving only a few tints, and the registration is exceptionally poor. The resulting pictures barely appear to be colored in many instances and are exceedingly crude representations. The only other work with similarly printed figures is the Color Key… which, like the early Reed guides, was printed by the Press of A. M. Eddy that apparently specialized in the technique which may have been "zincography". From 1909 on, the Reed guides contained pictures that exhibited more detail and background and were colored photo-mechanically. I consider the latter a second edition but there may have been more than one later edition. Doubleday was the main publisher of later editions although Charles K. Reed may have issued early examples. Early Reed guides were also published under imprints of W. B. Clarke of Boston, as here, and Musson of Toronto.
Trinity, p. 196; Wood, later edition; Zimmer, later edition; Yale, unlisted; original edition present in on-line catalogs of Harvard, Cornell. AMNH lists only later edition.
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey 14.0 x 8.0 cm. [1]82-158c4, advertisements [$1 signed];124 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-240 (8).. Publisher's black leather gilt with gold lettering and vignette of Great Blue Heron on upper cover, gold lettering on spine. (New York), Doubleday, Page & Co., 1910.
1, Small type “Water Birds” printed in inner, lower corner (is this a half-title?); 2, half-tone photographic frontispiece of Ruffed Grouse; 3, title; 4, copyright 1906, 1910, Chas. K. Reed, Worcester; 5, preface dated 1906; 6, introduction; 8, topography of a bird; 9, overall classification and characteristics of the 12 orders and their families covered in the book;16, half-title: Bird Guide / Part 1 / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey; 17, systematic text; 233, index of English names. Contains 216 unnumbered colored plates after the author on the side of the text, each depicting the one or two species described on that page. Of the plates, 16 depict two species. Approximately 10 closely related species are discussed but not illustrated. In addition, contains numerous unnumbered, uncolored text figures showing anatomical characteristics of the various orders and families.
This is the first printing of second edition of this Reed Guide, differing most importantly from the first by the use of color half-tone in the illustrations instead of the highly unsatisfactory color-printing process employed for the first edition originally published in 1906. Other differences include decreasing the number of colored plates from 232 to 216 by showing two species on several of the plates and omission of "East of the Rockies" from the title page although it is still present on the cover. All of the illustrations were redrawn for this second edition. The title page now omits the "Part 1" present in the first edition but the "1" still appears on the half-title just preceding the text.
This later edition of the Reed Guide on Water Birds.. with the pictures colored by a photomechanical process instead of by color-printing is present in all collections and major libraries. However, it was apparently issued in much smaller print runs than the corresponding volume on Land Birds and this original printing is rare. I now have first printings (identical year of printing and copyright) for first and second editions of the Land birds (1905,1909) and the Water birds (1906, 1910) as well as for the Western guide (1913).
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey 14.1 x 8.1 cm. [1]82-148[15]8 x4, advertisements [$1 signed];124 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-240 (8).. Publisher's black leather gilt with gold lettering and vignette of Great Blue Heron on upper cover, gold lettering on spine. Contained in original publisher’s printed box with colored figure of Osprey and notation “Leather $1.25Net” printed in red, Worcester, Chas K. Reed, 1913.
1, Small type “Water Birds” printed in inner, lower corner (is this a half-title?); 2, half-tone photographic frontispiece of Ruffed Grouse; 3, title; 4, copyright 1906, 1910, Chas. K. Reed, Worcester; 5, preface dated 1906; 6, introduction; 8, topography of a bird; 9, overall classification and characteristics of the 12 orders and their families covered in the book;16, half-title: Bird Guide / Part 1 / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey; 17, systematic text; 233, index of English names. Contains 216 unnumbered colored plates after the author on the side of the text, each depicting the one or two species described on that page. Of the plates, 16 depict two species. Approximately 10 closely related species are discussed but not illustrated. In addition, contains numerous unnumbered, uncolored text figures showing anatomical characteristics of the various orders and families.
This is the second edition of this Reed Guide, differing most importantly from the first by the use of color half-tone in the illustrations instead of the highly unsatisfactory color-printing process employed for the first edition originally published in 1906. Other differences include decreasing the number of colored plates from 232 to 216 by showing two species on several of the plates and omission of "East of the Rockies" from the title page although it is still present on the cover. All of the illustrations were redrawn for this second edition which was first published in 1910. The title page now omits the "Part 1" present in the first edition but the "1" still appears on the half-title just preceding the text.
This later edition of the Reed Guide on Water Birds.. with the pictures colored by a photomechanical process instead of by color-printing is present in all collections and major libraries. However, it was apparently issued in much smaller print runs than the corresponding volume on Land Birds.
The present very well preserved and handsome copy is in the most deluxe format, black leather with beautiful gilt printing and vignette on upper cover.
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey 14.1 x 8.2 cm. [1]82-138[14-15]8 [$1 signed, lacks signatures for 14, 15]; 120 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-240. Publisher's pictorial tan card with silvery colored vignette of Great Blue Heron on upper cover, black lettering on upper cover and spine. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1921.
1, blank, 2, half-tone photographic frontispiece of Ruffed Grouse; 3, title; 4, copyright 1906, 1910, Chas. K. Reed, Worcester; 5, preface; 6, introduction; 8, topography of a bird; 9, overall classification and characteristics of the 12 orders and their families covered in the book;16, half-title: Bird Guide / Part 1 / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey; 17, systematic text; 233, index. Contains 216 unnumbered colored plates after the author on the side of the text, each depicting the one or two species described on that page. Of the plates, 16 depict two species. Approximately 10 closely related species are discussed but not illustrated. In addition, contains numerous unnumbered, uncolored text figures showing anatomical characteristics of the various orders and families.
This is the second edition of this Reed Guide, differing most importantly from the first by the use of color half-tone in the illustrations instead of the highly unsatisfactory color-printing process employed for the first edition originally published in 1906. Other differences include decreasing the number of colored plates from 232 to 216 by showing two species on several of the plates and omission of "East of the Rockies" from the title page although it is still present on the cover. All of the illustrations were redrawn for this second edition which was first published in 1910. The title page now omits the "Part 1" present in the first edition but the "1" still appears on the half-title just preceding the text and on the spine of the binding.
This later edition of the Reed Guide on Water Birds.. with the pictures colored by a photomechanical process instead of by color-printing is present in all collections and major libraries. However, it was apparently issued in much smaller print runs than the corresponding volume on Land Birds.
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 2 / Land Birds East of the Rockies / From Parrots to Bluebirds 14.0 x 8.3 cm. [1]82-7128-108; 104 ll (not including eight blank leaves on thin paper at the end). Pp. (6)1-197[198-202]. Original publisher's tan card with black lettering on upper cover and spine, colored design of Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover. Worcester, Chas. K. Reed, 1905 (This date appears on both title and copyright pages).
11r, blank; 11v, frontispiece photograph of Chipping Sparrows; 12r, title; 12v, copyright and printer's designation: A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.; 13r-13v, preface; 1, introduction; 8, topography of a bird; 9, title; 10, explanations; 11, systematic text; 198-202, index. Contains 187 unnumbered, framed, partly color-printed pictures, each depicting a single species which is described in the adjacent text on the same page. Also contains full-page, uncolored photograph of Chipping Sparrows as frontispiece, uncolored photographs of juvenile birds on copyright page, of Chickadee on preface page, and of a House Wren on second title page.
Until I happened onto this book on ebay, I had assumed that the 1906 printing of the work was the first. This is because all subsequent edition and printings of this volume have original copyrights of 1909 and 1906 on their copyright pages. The 1909 edition represented a substantial difference and improvement since it contained different, fully colored pictures that were reproduced by four-color half-tone. Why did the Reeds issue a separate copyright for this work in 1906 and never refer back to the present volume as the original copyright? The texts of the two volumes appear to be printed from the identical setting. I've examined this book carefully and found the following differences in it from the 1906 version:
1. This volume has gatherings of eight and 12 leaves whereas the later one has only gatherings of eight.
2. The page numbers in this volume are, for the most part, placed under the text with only a few under the pictures whereas they are all under the pictures in the later printing.
3. The frames around the pictures are of black and an additional color in this volume whereas they are only black in the later volume. In this volume, the second color is usually one that also appears on the bird and there is frequent and grotesque misregistration of the color on both frame and bird.
4. This volume bears the date 1905 on both title and copyright page.
Apparently, only the Land Bird volume "Part 2" was issued in 1905 and the earliest printing of "Part 1" was the 1906. At least that's my opinion until I find otherwise.
Trinity and the Library of Congress list a 1905 date for Part 2 accompanied by a 1906 date for Part 1. No other major library lists the 1905 issue (is it a "printing" or an "edition"?) which, I suspect, is quite rare.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912)
Bird guide / part 2 / land birds east of the Rockies / from parrots to bluebirds 14.0 x 8.3 cm. [1]82-7128-108[$1 signed]; 104 ll. (6)1-197[198-202). Original publisher's tan card with black lettering on upper cover and spine, colored design of Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover. Preserved in undecorated, unlettered blue leather-covered card slipcase. Worcester, Chas. K. Reed, 1905 (This date appears on both title and copyright pages).
11r, blank; 11v, frontispiece photograph of Chipping Sparrows; 12r, title; 12v, copyright and printer's designation: A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.; 13r-13v, preface dated :October 1st, 1905; 1, introduction; 8, topography of a bird; 9, title; 10, explanations; 11, systematic text; 198-202, index. Contains 187 unnumbered, framed, partly color-printed pictures, each depicting a single species which is described in the adjacent text on the same page. Also contains full-page, uncolored photograph of Chipping Sparrows as frontispiece, uncolored photographs of juvenile birds on copyright page, of Chickadee on preface page, and of a House Wren on second title page.
This is my second copy of the rare original 1905 printing of Reed’s guide to land birds. It differs from my first in lacking eight blank leaves of thin paper that were at the end of that copy. In addition, the present copy is preserved in a highly unusual, perhaps unique undecorated, untitled blue calf slipcase. All other early Reed guides including examples of both first and second editions that I have examined were preserved in lettered card boxes decorated with an illustration from the contents. Around 1920, similarly lettered and decorated card slipcases replaced the boxes.
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 2 / Land Birds East of the Rockies / From Parrots to Bluebirds Oblong, 14.0 x 8.2 cm. [1]82-138[$1 signed]; 104 ll. Pp. (6)1-197[198-202]. There are, in addition, eight blank leaves of very thin paper at the end. Original publisher's flexible full red leather with gilt titles on upper cover and spine, gilt design of Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover. Worcester, Chas. K. Reed, 1906.
11r, blank; 11v, frontispiece photograph of Chipping Sparrows; 12r, title; 12v, copyright and printer's designation: A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.; 13r-13v, preface; 1, introduction; 8, topography of a bird; 9, title; 10, explanations; 11, systematic text; 198-202, index. Contains 187 unnumbered framed (partly) color-printed pictures, each depicting a single species which is described in the adjacent text on the same page. Also contains full-page uncolored photographic frontispiece of Chipping Sparrows, uncolored photographs of baby birds on copyright page, of Chickadee on preface page, and of House Wren on second title page.
This is the second printing, or perhaps second edition (vide infra) of the of the most popular of the Reed Guides. Although it is called "Part 2", there was a 1905 printing of it but not of "Part 1" (Water Birds). This second printing might be considered a second edition because it differs from the first in the placement of page numbers and in the signature numbers which here reflect gatherings of eight only, compared to gatherings of 12 and eight in the 1905 version. Perhaps this is why Reed used the copyright of 1906 for this book instead of the original 1905 copyright. However, the two texts appear to be taken from the same type setting. By 1912, 300, 000 copies of the book had been sold and the Reeds had entered into an arrangement with Doubleday for its publication. The first edition was characterized by illustrations that were reproduced by a unique (and uniquely crude) color-printing process used by A. M. Eddy of Albion, N. Y. This may have been "zincography". The registration is dreadful. The second edition was published in 1909 in association with Doubleday and contained different illustrations that were reproduced by the standard, photo-mechanical, four color process. The book remained popular until it was supplanted by the Peterson and the Pough guides after the second world war. Any copies of the first edition with the color printing are scarce, this original printing particularly so. The work was issued in two bindings, flexible decorative card for 50 cents and the present flexible (bona fide) leather for 75 cents. This work was extremely influential in the United States, was the first real pocket guide for any region, and in my view is of considerable historical significance although overlooked by bibliographers, ornithologists and ornithological historians because of its primarily popular appeal.
I have compared this copy with a copy of a 1908 printing that I possess. That copy contains the flexible card cover and has five terminal leaves of advertisements for binoculars, post cards, and other books by Reed that are not present here. More interestingly, it lacks the printed "1" on the first page of the introduction indicating that it cannot truly be designated a "reprint".
My first field guide was an early 1940 issue of this book and I have a similar copy in this collection. The cover is faux red leather and the gilt is differently distributed on the otherwise similar vignette of the Red-headed Woodpecker.
1906 printings of this book are listed by Trinity, p. 196 and the on-line catalogs of Cornell and Harvard. Early printings are lacking from the Ayer collection as well as the libraries of the AMNH, McGill, and Yale.
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912)
Bird guide / part 2 / Land birds east of the Rockies / from parrots to bluebirds 14.1 x 8.4 cm. [1]82-138χ16[$1 signed); 120 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-223[224-230](10, advertisements). Original tan card with Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover, black lettering on upper cover and spine and red-stamped "REVISED EDITION" on upper cover. Preserved in original publisher’s printed box with colored picture of Rose-breasted Grosbeak on upper cover. Worcester, Chas. I. Reed, 1909 (first printing)
1, Blank; 2, frontispiece, uncolored photo of Chipping Sparrow; 3, title; 4, copyrighted 1906, 1909 by Chas. K. Reed; plates engraved and printed by Quadri-Color Co. Press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.; 5, preface dated October 1st, 1905(sic); 7, introduction; 14, topography of a bird; 15, title; 17, systematic text, Conuropsis carolinensis-Sialia sialis; field key; 216, classified Table of eastern land birds; 225, index. Contains 192 framed colored prints depicting about 216 species adjacent to pertinent text on inner half of the page. Also contains uncolored photo frontispiece of Chipping Sparrows, uncolored photos of baby birds, Chickadee and House Wren on copyright page, preface page and second title page, respectively.
This is the rare, bona fide first printing of the second edition of the Reed guide identified as such by the fact that the date 1909 appears on the title page as well as on its obverse, the copyright page. Dates are often mistakenly ascribed to the Reed guides based on the copyright alone. The year of actual printing is the date on the title page.
The first edition of the land bird volume of the Reed guide was initially printed in 1905, that of the water bird volume in 1906 despite the fact that the land bird volume was referred to as “part 2”. The figures in these volumes were very poorly color-printed by a mechanical process apparently used only by A. M. Eddy of Albion, N.Y. The second editions of the two editions were first issued in 1909 (land birds) and 1910 (water birds). The 1906 and later editions of the land birds differed in a few minor particulars from that of 1905 so the latter might be considered the first and the 1906 the second editions, in which event the 1909 edition would be the third for the land birds. There was no 1905 edition of the water birds. The major difference between the 1909 and subsequent land bird printings and the 1910 and subsequent water bird printings was that the illustrations were done by four-color half-tone and were vastly improved.. Reed guides were probably printed in virtually every year between 1906 and 1940 and the last was printed in 1951.
It is interesting that the advertisement for the water bird volume includes an uncolored example from the first (1906) edition rather than a prospective example from the second (1910) edition.
This is the first example I have seen of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak on the box.
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 2 / Land Birds East of the Rockies / from Parrots to Bluebirds 14,0 x 8.2 cm. [1]82-138χ16[$1 signed];120 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-223[224-230](10, advertisements). Original tan card with Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover, black lettering on upper cover and spine and red-stamped "REVISED EDITION" on upper cover. Preserved in publisher's box with colored picture of Harris Sparrow on upper cover. New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1910.
1, Blank; 2, frontispiece uncolored photo of Chipping Sparrows; 3, title; 4, copyrighted 1906, 1909 by Chas K. Reed; 5, preface; 7, introduction; 14, topography of a bird (diagram); 15, title; 17, systematic text; 209, field key; 216, classification table; 225, index. Contains 192 framed colored prints depicting about 216 species adjacent to pertinent text on inner half of the page. Also contains uncolored photo frontispiece of Chipping Sparrows, uncolored photos of Chickadee and House Wren on preface page and second title page respectively
As noted in my entries for earlier printings of this work, I consider the Reed guides to have been extremely important in the popularization of American ornithology and I feel that Reed, who died prematurely, never received the recognition he deserved.
This revised edition first appeared in 1909 and differed very significantly from the original version first published in 1906. Most importantly, the colored frames for the later edition were produced photo-mechanically by four-color half-tone. Although the registration is still very poor for many pictures including those of Blue Grosbeak, various sparrows and two longspurs to name a few, the representations are still vastly superior to those done by the Eddy Press of Albion, N. Y. using a manual method of color printing for the earlier edition. Moreover, every illustration was redone for this edition in more of a tableaux format, presumably because the previous manual printing technique restricted the freedom of the artist. The number of colored prints was increased from 187 to 192 because quite a few new species were added, mostly these, like Green Jay and Vermilion Flycatcher, restructed ti border areas for the guide. A few species, such as House Finch, were removed from the guide. The style of pagination was also altered such that the introduction is on page 7 of the present edition whereas it was considered page 1 of the original. The colored advertisements of the older version have given way to standard printed appeals in the present book.
The present format was kept more or less the same for the rest of the life of the guide. There are a few differences in the organization of the preliminaries between this book and the 1947 issue that I possess. The photograph of the Chickadee is different. The colored illustrations are almost all the same although the four-color half-tones in the later printing are in much better registration. Two pictures, the Robin and the Bluebird, are different in the 1947 issue.
This box with the Harris Sparrow is an early one. I have seen examples of boxes for the first edition i.e. prior to 1909. Those boxes are respectively the signature designs of the Great Blue Heron and Red-headed Woodpecker that appear on the cover of the books. Like the pictures in those early volumes, the boxes are color-printed with very poor registration. By 1926, the box had become a slip case and the illustration on it was a Scarlet Tanager. Still later, the Blue Grosbeak was used to illustrate the slip case as in my 1947 copy. I think I have also seen a box or slip case embellished with a Song Sparrow. The price on this 1910 box is "Cloth 75 Cents" whereas it is $1.95 for the 1947 copy in "imitation leather"
The Red-headed Woodpecker has been a constant on the cover of the Reed Land Bird Guide.
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 2 / Land Birds East of the Rockies / from Parrots to Bluebirds 14,1 x 8.3 cm. [1]82-138χ16[$1 signed];120 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-238 (2, blank). Original tan card with Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover, black lettering on upper cover and spine and red-stamped "REVISED EDITION" on upper cover. Preserved in publisher's box with colored picture of Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover. Worcester, Mass, Chas. K. Reed, 1910
Cover verso: promotional advertisement for Baker Extract Co; 1, blank; 2, frontispiece uncolored photo of Chipping Sparrows; 3, title; 4, copyrighted 1906, 1909 by Chas K. Reed; engraved and printed by Quadri-Color Co. of N. Y. ; 5, preface; 7, introduction; 14, topography of a bird (diagram); 15, title; 17, systematic text; 209, field key; 216, classification table; 225, index; 231 advertisements. Contains 192 framed colored prints depicting about 216 species adjacent to pertinent text on inner half of the page. Also contains uncolored photo frontispiece of Chipping Sparrows, uncolored photos of Chickadee and House Wren on preface page and second title page respectively
As noted in my entries for earlier printings of this work, I consider the Reed guides to have been extremely important in the popularization of American ornithology and I feel that Reed, who died prematurely, never received the recognition he deserved.
This revised edition first appeared in 1909 and differed very significantly from the original version first published in 1906. Most importantly, the colored frames for the later edition were produced photo-mechanically by four-color half-tone. Although the registration is still very poor for many pictures including those of Blue Grosbeak, various sparrows and two longspurs to name a few, the representations are still vastly superior to those done by the Eddy Press of Albion, N. Y. using a manual method of color printing for the earlier edition. Moreover, every illustration was redone for this edition in more of a tableaux format, presumably because the previous manual printing technique restricted the freedom of the artist. The number of colored prints was increased from 187 to 192 because quite a few new species were added, mostly these, like Green Jay and Vermilion Flycatcher, restructed ti border areas for the guide. A few species, such as House Finch, were removed from the guide. The style of pagination was also altered such that the introduction is on page 7 of the present edition whereas it was considered page 1 of the original. The colored advertisements of the older version have given way to standard printed appeals in the present book.
The present format was kept more or less the same for the rest of the life of the guide. There are a few differences in the organization of the preliminaries between this book and the 1912 issue that I possess; the publisher for that copy is Chas. K. Reed of Worcester; Quadri-Color of N. Y. is credited as the printer; pages 224-238 are enumerated; and the advertisements are different including the addition of books published in 1912 as well as the Baker Extract promotional give-away. There is also a terminal blank. There are other differences from the 1947 issue in my collection. The photograph of the Chickadee is different. The colored illustrations are almost all the same although the four-color half-tones in the later printing are in much better registration. Two pictures, the Robin and the Bluebird, are different in the 1947 issue.
This box with the Red-headed Woodpecker is unusual and this is the first example of it I have encountered with the second edition. I have seen examples of boxes for the first edition i. e. prior to 1909. Those boxes are respectively the signature designs of the Great Blue Heron and Red-headed Woodpecker that appear on the cover of the books. Like the pictures in those early volumes, those boxes are color-printed with very poor registration. All illustrations for boxes with the second edition were produced photomechanically. By 1926, the box had become a slip case and the illustration on it was a Scarlet Tanager. Still later, the Blue Grosbeak was used to illustrate the slip case as in my 1947 copy. I have also seen a box or slip case embellished with an Indigo Bunting, a Harris's Sparrow and a Song Sparrow. The price on this 1912 box is "Cloth 75 Cents" whereas it is $1.95 for the 1947 copy in "imitation leather"
The Red-headed Woodpecker has been a constant on the cover of the Reed Land Bird Guide.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912)
Bird guide / land birds east of the Rockies / from parrots to bluebirds 14.3 x 8.4 cm. [1]82-138(lacking signatures 6, 11)X16[$1 signed]; 120ll. Pp. [1-4]5-229(1)(10, advertisements). Original printed tan card cover with colored image of Red-headed Woodpecker, black lettering on upper cover and spine and stamped in red on upper cover “REVISED EDITION”. P reserved in publisher’s printed box with colored picture of Northern Shrike on upper cover. Garden City, New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1916.
1, blank; 2, frontispiece uncolored photo of Chipping Sparrows; 3, title page; 4, copyright 1906, 1909, by Chas K. Reed; 5, preface dated 1 October, 1905; 7, introduction; 14, topography of a bird; 15, title; 16, author’s comments; 17, systematic text, parrots-bluebird; 209, field keys; 216, classification table; 225, index of English names; X9, book advertisements; X15, printer designation: The Country Life Press, Garden City, N. Y. . Contains 192 framed colored prints depicting about 216 species adjacent to pertinent text on inner half of the page. Also contains uncolored photo frontispiece of Chipping Sparrows, uncolored photos of Chickadee and House Wren on preface page and second title page respectively
I bought this example because of the box which was decorated with a colored picture of a Northern Shrike and an impaled grasshopper. I would not imagine that this image would increase sales and perhaps that is why I have never seen it before. I have seen other boxes or slipcases decorated with Scarlet Tanager, Blue Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Song Sparrow and Harris’s Sparrow as well as with Red-headed Woodpecker. The present box calls the covers “Flexible Linen” and gives the price as 75 cents.
The Bird Book / illustrating/ in Natural Colors / more than seven hundred / North American Birds / also several hundred / photographs of their/ Nests and Eggs 25.0 x 18.5 cm. [1]82-2782810298306[$1 signed]; 240 ll. Pp. [1-6]7-472(8, advertisements for books and binoculars). Original publisher's pebble green cloth, gilt lettering on upper cover and spine. Worcester, Chas. K. Reed, 1914. Printed by A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y. Bookplate of Aaron Clarke Bagg (1885-1947), author of Birds of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts (1937)
1, Half-title; 2, colored frontispiece of passenger pigeon; 3, title; 4, copyright; 5, uncolored photograph of barn owl; 6, topography of bird; 7, contents; 9, colored plate of baltimore oriole; 10, text; 451, index. Contains 18 full-page colored plates after Reed, hundreds of reduced colored plates adjacent to descriptive text for relevant species, hundreds of uncolored photographs of eggs and many of nests and birds in their natural habitats. Also contains numerous small uncolored vignettes of birds. All unnumbered. All printing on both sides of leaf.
This work was published posthumously, apparently by Reed's father, Charles K., born in 1851. He mixed and matched from his son’s various publications, including the field guides, the book on eggs and the collection of photographs, to yield the present volume which covers 768 species. For most of these, there is a colored picture, often an uncolored photograph of the egg and often a simple vignette-type line drawing. The text is quite scanty usually covering range and touching briefly on physical characteristics and those of the nests and eggs. Overall, this is a synopsis of all of Chester A. Reed's ornithological publications.
The printing of the book was done by A. M. Eddy of Albion, N. Y. They were the firm that did the dreadful color printing for the illustrations in Chapman and Reed's Key to North American Birds and in Reed's guides published prior to 1909. From 1909 forward, the Reed guides contained different pictures reproduced photomechanically by Doubleday and far superior to their antecedents. In the present volume, the colored figures are taken from the same originals that Doubleday used for the later guides. However, the four-color half-tones produced by A. M. Eddy are just as bad as were their color-printed figures for the early Reed guides. The registration in these pictures is the worst I have ever seen for those reproduced photomechanically. A comparison of some of the owls and warblers from this volume with the same pictures in the post 1909 Reed guides is like night and day.
The present book was also issued over Doubleday (1914, 1915) and Lamb Publishing Co. (1916) imprints. It would be interesting to see whether the colored figures in these later issues by different publishers were as bad as they are in this initial issue. The identical book, save for a different title and title page, The Canadian Bird Book, was published by Musson Book Co., Toronto, 1914
This first issue is present at Cornell and Harvard. Harvard, AMNH, Yale and Trinity have the Doubleday edition and Trinity also lists the Lamb edition.
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1875-1912)
The bird book / illustrating in natural colors / more than seven hundred / North American birds; also several hundred / photographs of their / nests and eggs 25.0 x 18.1 cm. [1]82-2782810298306(-306) [$1 signed] 240 ll. Pp. [1-6]7-472(8, advertisements). Original publisher’s green pebbled cloth boards with gilt lettering on upper cover and spine. Garden City, Doubleday, Page & Company, 1915.
1, Half-title; 2, colored plate of Passenger Pigeon; 3, title; 4, copyright; 5, photograph of Barn Owl; 6, topography of a bird; 7, contents; 9, colored plate of Baltimore Oriole; 10, systematic text, Western Grebe-Mountain Bluebird (1-768 species); 451, index (English and Generic); (4 leaves of advertisements). Contains 18 full-page, unnumbered color-printed full-page illustrations after Reed included in pagination and containing running text; printed colored thumb-nail illustrations for all species, uncolored pictures of eggs for most; numerous tiny uncolored side vignettes and about 50 uncolored text photographs.
This is an agglomeration of parts of many Reed books put together by his father after his son’s death. There were several imprints dated 1914-1916 for this work. The first such imprint, Chas K. Reed (1914) explicitly states that it was printed by A. M. Eddy of Albion, New York. The photomechanical colored illustrations of that book exhibited poor registration and I wondered whether the Doubleday imprint, wherein the printer is not explicitly stated, might have better ones. Examination of the present volume reveals the same poor printing of the colored figures. This surprised me because the contemporary second edition Reed guides with both Reed and Doubleday imprints had much better half-tone coloring.
OCLC locates 87 examples comprising the various imprints.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 1 / Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey / East of the Rockies Oblong, 8.1 x 14.0 cm. [1]8(-11, 18)2-168[$1 signed]126 (of 128) ll. Pp. [3-4]5-14, 17-254 (2, advertisement for binoculars). Original publisher's flexible full red leather with gilt vignette of Great Blue Heron on upper cover, gilt titles on upper cover and spine. Worcester, Chas. K. Reed, 1906.
3, title; 4, copyright, printer's designation: A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.; 5, preface; 6, introduction; 8, topography of a bird; 9, overall characterization of orders covered in this volume; 17, systematic text; 249, index. Contains 232 (partly) color-printed framed illustrations depicting species described in adjacent text on same page. Also contains uncolored photograph of Spotted Sandpiper on copyright page and numerous unnumbered, uncolored line cuts of anatomical parts of various species that characterize their taxonomic group. This copy lacks leaves 11 (pp. 1-2) containing blank recto and uncolored photographic frontispiece of a Ruffed Grouse on verso and 18 (pp. 15-16) containing final page of taxonomic section and second title page.
This is the original printing of this important Reed book that could certainly be considered the first bona fide pocket field guide and that was enormously influential in recruiting people of average means into the sport, art and science of ornithology. The work was issued with a pictorial card cover for 50 cents whereas this leather bound version cost 75 cents. By the time I acquired my working copy in the early 1940s, it was only offered in red faux leather. The design of the Great Blue Heron on the upper cover of the later version was similar in size and shape but the gilt was distributed differently. The first edition was characterized by illustrations that were color-printed by the Eddy firm using a special undesignated technique that gave poor results. The second edition, first printed in 1909, contained more complex illustrations printed by the standard photo-mechanical four-color process. That printing and all later versions were done in conjunction with Doubleday.
I have another copy of the 1906 edition of this book which differs in listing the publisher as "Boston, W. B. Clarke Co." However, the copyright page of that volume designates the copyright to Chas. K. Reed of Worcester.
Trinity, p. 196; This edition also listed for Cornell and Harvard libraries but absent from Wood, Zimmer, AMNH and Yale.
Wild Birds of New York 18 x 13 cm: Pp. [1-5]6-52(4, advertisements). Original decorated colored lithographic wrappers. Mohonk New York, Mohonk Salesrooms, 1912.
1, colored frontispiece, 3, title. Contains full-page colored frontispiece and 40 colored text illustrations by Reed, the latter from his land and water bird guides.
This little work contains a running description of the various families of birds and their species that inhabit the northeastern United States as well as a more detailed description in smaller type for each of the 40 species that are illustrated. At the end is a chart of seasonal distribution with the species listed according to the AOU check list and designated with the numbers from that list. Zimmer (p. 504) describes what sounds like an identical work entitled “Wild Birds of New England” that was published by Chas. K. Reed in Worcester in 1912. Chas. K. Reed, Worcester is listed as the copyright owner on the verso of the title page of the present work so I suspect it is the same as that described by Zimmer save for the title.
Yale, p. 237. Unlisted by Trinity, Wood, Zimmer.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912).
Wild Birds / of / New England 17.5 x 13.5 cm: Pp. [1-5]6-52(4, advertisements for other books by Reed and for binoculars). Original string-bound printed decorated colored lithographic wrappers containing depiction of wilson’s warbler. Contained in original publisher’s colore pictorial box with depictions of wilson’s warbler and scarlet tanager on upper cover. Worcester, Mass. Chas K. Reed, 1912.
1, Blank; 2, colored frontispiece of Baltimore oriole; 4, copyright 1912; Press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.,; 5, wild birds of New England, introduction; 6, topography of a bird (uncolored text illustration); 7-46, species accounts, robin-wood duck; 47-52, list and seasonal occurrence of birds of New England; Contains full-page colored frontispiece and 40 color half-tone text illustrations by Reed, the latter from his land and water bird guides.
This little work contains a running description of the various families of birds and their species that inhabit the northeastern United States as well as a more detailed description in smaller type for each of the 40 species that are illustrated. At the end is a chart of seasonal distribution with the species listed according to the AOU check list and designated with the numbers from that list.
This attractive little book is one of many spin offs from the second edition of Reed’s field guides that were issued in 1909 and 1910. It is identical in format and almost identical in content to another entitled Wild birds of New York, also published in 1912. The original printed box in which this copy is contained, is extremely uncommon.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912)
American / game birds 17.1 x 12.5 cm. No signatures. Pp. [1-4]5-64. Original publisher’s brown boards with sheets of framed colored plates pasted almost to size on upper (Bobwhite) and lower (Mallard and Cackling Goose) covers. The upper cover is also crudely lettered in red “GAME BIRDS”. Worcester, Charles K. Reed, 1912.
1, Blank; 2, colored frontispiece of Wood Duck; 3, title; 4, copyrighted 1912 by Charles K. Reed; engraved and printed by Quadri-Color Co., New York; 5, author’s statement of purpose dated August, 1912; 6, half-title; 7, systematic text: Mergus americanus-Pediocetes phaisianellus campestris; describing and illustrating about 117 species; 55, index of English names; 57-64, advertisements for other books by Reed and for binoculars. Contains colored half-tone frontispiece, 49 other unnumbered colored pictures printed in the upper outer corner of 24 leaves, most depicting two species, some one or three. Also contains 19 line sketches of birds not illustrated in color.
This attractive little work comprises, under the term “game birds” almost 120 species of ducks, rails, shorebirds, grouse and their various allies. A small essay as well as an illustration, in most cases colored, is devoted to each. The information usually includes Latin name, size, distribution and sometimes a few sentences about the life history. The pictures are not very accurate yet possess a certain charm.
OCLC locates 38 copies.
Reed, Chester A(lbert) (1876-1912)
Bird Guide / Part 2 / Land Birds East of the Rockies / From Parrots to Bluebirds 14.1 x 8.4 cm. [1]82-138χ 5[$1 signed;109 ll. Pp. (6)[1]2-197[198-202(10, advertisements for books, post cards, binoculars). Printed tan "flexible sock cloth" (card) with color-printed Red-headed Woodpecker on upper cover. Toronto, The Musson Book Company, (1906).
11r, blank; 11v, frontispiece of uncolored photograph of chipping sparrows; 12r, title; 12v, copyright Chas. K. Reed, Worcester, Mass., 1906; printer's designation: Press of A, M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.; 13r-13v, preface; 1, introduction; 8, topography of a bird; 9, second title page; 10, explanations and definitions; 11, species accounts; 198-202, index. Contains 187 unnumbered, framed partly color-printed pictures, each depicting a single species that is described in adjacent text. Two additional species are not illustrated. Also contains uncolored photographic frontispiece and uncolored photographs of chickadees on preface page and of a house wren on second title page.
This copy of the first edition of Reed's Land Bird Guide does not have a year printed on the title page and bears the imprint "Toronto, The Musson Book Company". However, like all the other examples, it bears the copyright of Chas. K. Reed. It also differs from the copy I have with the Chas. K. Reed imprint and1906 printed on the title page in lacking a printed "1" on the first page of the introduction and in containing the five leaves of advertisements at the end. The advertisements are the same but are in a different order and, in this copy, are printed on the same thin paper as the text whereas in the 1908 copy they are printed on thicker paper. This copy is bound in "flexible sock cloth" and cost 50 cents as opposed to 75 cents for copies bound in flexible leather.
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912)
Illustrated / bird dictionary / and / note book / Land bird of eastern North America 8.5 x 14.2 cm (oblong). Pp. [1-4]5-110(14, blank leaf and six leaves of advertisements for binoculars and for other publications by Reed. Advertisements include eight colored and two uncolored half-tone illustrations). Original brown thick paper wrapper with color-printed (?chromolithographed) Hooded Warbler on upper cover which also contains framed title printed in black and yellow. Black lettering to spine. Worcester, Chas. K. Reed, (1912)
1, Blank; 2, advertisement for companion book on water birds; 3, title; 4, copyright 1912; press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.; 5, text, Carolina Paroquet-Bluebird covering more than 200 species and subspecies; 105 index. Contains about 180 uncolored, unnumbered line illustrations with adjacent text that covers very briefly: description, song, nidification and range
This is one of the more uncommon Reed guides, adapted from his standard colored field guide but with the pictures being uncolored versions of those produced by Eddy for Chapman and Reed’s Color key to North American birds(1903, 1912). These uncolored illustrations indicate considerable artistic talent on the part of Reed; talent often obscured by the very poor color printing that was evident in many of his books. Reed was an extraordinary entrepreneur and he published the pictures and text from his basic guides in various formats and titles that were basically cut-and-paste jobs from the originals.
Melvyl lists the water bird volume. of this set which I have never seen. OCLC lists the work without specifying whether it is that dealing with land or with water birds. The title is absent from AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Wood, Yale and Zimmer.
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912)
Illustrated / bird dictionary / and / note book / / water birds, game birds and birds of prey / illustrations of more than 200 species 14.4 x 8.4 cm. 1-88χ6[$1 signed]; 70 ll. Pp. [1-4]4-127(1)(12, advertisements for books, miniature bird pictures and binoculars including eight colored figures). Original publisher’s printed brown card covers with color-printed Hooded Merganser on upper cover. Worcester, Chas. K. Reed, 1912.
1, Blank; 2, advertisement for corresponding land bird volume; 3, title; 4, preface; 5-119, descriptions of species; 120 blank; 121-127, index of English names; 127, Press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, New York.
Reed suggests, in the preface, that this inexpensive (35 cents) little book can be used as a field guide and note book. The pen and ink drawings are those produced in color by Eddy for Chapman and Reed’s Color key to North American birds. The names and numbers assigned to species are those that were designated by the AOU.
This interesting early field guide is rare. OCLC does not distinguish between the water bird and land bird volumes but lists only six locations with either or both. Unlisted by Wood, Zimmer, AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale.
Reed, Chester A(lbert)(1876-1912)
Illustrated / bird dictionary / and / notebook / land birds of eastern North America 14.2 x 8.3 cm. 1-78χ6[$1 signed]; 62 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-110(2, blank)(12 comprising advertisements for books, miniature pictures and binoculars including eight colored figures). Original publisher’s printed brown card covers with color-printed Hooded Warbler on upper cover. Worcester, Mass, Chas. K. Reed, (1912).
1, Blank; 2, advertisement for companion volume on water birds; 3, title; 4, copyright, 1912; Press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, N. Y.; 5, preface; 6-104, descriptions of species; 105-110, ndex (sic) of English names.
The pen and ink drawings are those that were used by Eddy to produce the colored figures for Chapman and Reed’s Color key to North American birds. Reed’s pictures are much more attractive in this uncolored state compared to the poorly color-printed figures in the key. The brief texts include the length, a description of the bird and short comments on the song, nest, eggs and distribution. Considerable material is thus packed into this small volume, intended as a field guide and a vehicle for field notes in the bare spaces adjacent to the figures.
This and the companion volume on water birds are rare. OCLC does not distinguish between them and lists only six locations for either or both. Not listed by Wood, Zimmer, AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale.
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912)
Camera studies / of / wild birds / in their homes 18.2 x 13.4 cm. [1]82-198204 [$1 signed]; 156 ll. Pp. [1-5]6-312. Original publisher’s brown cloth with gilt lettering on upper cover and spine, mounted color photo of young blue jays on upper cover. Garden City, N. Y., Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911.
1, Title; 2, copyright, 1911, Chas. K. Reed, Worcester, Mass.; 3, preface; 5, contents; 7, introduction; 9, text; 305, how bird photographs are made; 311, index of English names of photographed species. Contains uncolored half-tone photographic text figures 1-258. Also contains half-tone color photograph of young Blue Jays as frontispiece and three leaves containing six half-tone color plates from paintings by Reed all not included in pagination.
The 258 text photographs in this work are concerned with the nesting habits of about 52, mostly Passerine, species. The text is anecdotal, describing the circumstances under which the author found and photographed the birds and their nests and young. Reed’s productivity during his short life was extraordinary. Birds were his strongest interest and his love for them is manifest in this rather common little book.
OCLC locates 62 copies.
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912)
Nature study / birds 18.1 x 13.4 cm. [1]82-78X[$1 signed]57 ll. Pp. [1-3]4-97(1)[I]II-VIII(6, advertisements)(2, recto, colored plate of chipping sparrow, verso blank) Original publisher’s olive cloth with black lettering (“studies” instead of “study”) and vignette of chickadees on upper cover. Worcester, Mass, Chas K. Reed, 1910.
1, Title; 2, Copyright, 1910; Press of A. M. Eddy, Albion, NY. 3, introduction; 4, bird lore Part I; 17, bird studies Part II; I-VIII, index of birds (40 species). Contains 40 unnumbered color half-tone thumbnail pictures and 40 uncolored line sketches each associated with the text for its species. Also contains full page color half-tone print of chipping sparrow at nest on last leaf.
This little book is clearly the precursor and complement to Reed’s “Nature studies in field and wood” published in 1911. It is intended for children as an introduction to birds. After a general section on ornithology, 40 common North American species are pictured and woven into stories for a juvenile audience. The index gives the size and distribution of each species.
The thumbnail pictures come from the second editions of Reed’s field guides. The color half-tone printing by A. M. Eddy is, in some instances, just as bad as in the 1914 edition of “The bird book”, with marked misregistration. Some copies of the present work have a Doubleday imprint and may contain better colored illustrations.
This is among the scarcer of Reed titles. OCLC locates 14 copies.
Reed, Chester A.(lbert)(1876-1912)
Nature studies / in / field and wood 18.2 x 13.3 cm. [1]82-68[$1 signed]; 48 ll. Pp.[1-5]6-93(3, advertisements). Original publisher’s olive cloth with mounted color pictorial title on upper cover. Black lettering on spine. Worcester, Mass., Chas. K. Reed, 1911.
1, Title; 2, copyright 1911; 3, contents; 4, introduction; 5, tell-tale tracks; 12, the awakening; 20, through field and meadow; 49, pond and swamp life; 64, along the brook; 73, through the woods; 89, seed travelers. Contains painted color half-tone frontispiece printed on one side and seven unpaginated leaves containing 14 unnumbered color half-tone painted plates printed on both sides. Also contains 38 unnumbered, uncolored text illustrations, most half-tone photographs, but some drawn figures and one head piece. All artwork, including the photographs, by Chester A. Reed.
Reed artfully introduces young readers to the world of natural history in this attractive little book. He covers plants, mammals, amphibians and reptiles but limits his treatment of birds, his favorite subject, to a few minor allusions without illustrations. This is probably because his books on birds were already well known and were advertised at the rear of this volume.
This work seems to be relatively little known. OCLC locates only 14 copies but I found six for sale on the world-wide web.
Reed, Chas. K. (1851-1921), Reed, Chester A. (lbert)(1876-1912)
Guide to / taxidermy 18.1 / 13.0 cm. New edition – enlarged and re-written Fifteenth thousand. [1]8(-11)2-198206 [$1 signed] 157 ll. Pp. [3-5]6-304 [305-307, index][308-316, advertisements]. Original publisher’s brown cloth with framed gilt and black printing on upper cover, gilt printing on spine. Small colored figure of Bald Eagle on upper cover. Worcester, Mass., Chas. K. Reed, 1908.
3, Title; 4, copyright 1903 and 1908 by Chas. K. Reed; two half-tone photographs (frontispiece); 5, preface; 7, half-tone photographs of mounted Brown Thrashers; 8, table of contents; 13, list of illustrations; 19, collecting; 37, birds; 93, animals; 121, mounting heads; 139, tanning skins; 151, mounting fish; 167, mounting reptiles; 173, collecting and mounting insects; 185, tools and materials; 213, eyes; 220, stumps, foliage; 229, prices for mounting specimens; list of North American birds (with prices); 305, index. There are 44 pages with 55 half-tone, unnumbered photographs, some of original paintings by Chester A. Reed. These pages are included in pagination and contain running text on their obverses. The frontispiece of this copy has photographs of a fish and of gulls whereas the list of illustrations calls for rocky mountain sheep, Almost every page of text that lacks a photographic illustration contains one or two marginal line sketches.
Based on information from OCLC, I believe that the first edition of this book may have been copyrighted in 1903, contained 87 pages, and been published in an edition of 10, 000 copies under the title “Guide to taxidermy with full instructions how to prepare and mount birds, animals and fish. Also a complete list of all North American birds…” However, that edition seems to be rare and almost all extant examples of the guide are those from 1908 and 1914, which are virtually identical. The work was extremely popular in its day and OCLC locates194 copies.
Of particular interest to me, is the chapter “List of North American birds”, which contains not only the list, but also “a fair valuation of the eggs, skins and mounted specimens of each”.
The signatures and pagination suggest that my copy may be missing a half-title or that an intended half-title was omitted.
Reichenbach, H(einrich) G(ottlieb) L(udwig) (1793-1879)
Die / Vollständige Naturgeschichte / der / Schwimmvögel: / Aves Natatores. / Oiseaux Nageurs. 24.7 x 16.6 cm. Title page engraved in sepia with fine ornithologically decorative ornamental frame. Verso blank; No text. Contemporary dark brown ribbed cloth, gilt lettering to spine. Patterned brown endpapers. Marbled edges. Dresden and Leipzig, publisher and date unspecified.
Contains 113 hand-colored engraved plates numbered 1-111,111a, 111b at the base of each plate, mostly in old ink manuscript or pencil, sometimes printed. Also a printed Roman enumeration at upper right that is nonsequential and may refer to position in the multivolume work. The plates were drawn by Reichenbach, most copied from antecedent works, and engraved by O. Lange, and occasionally by G. A. S. (G. A. Schwergeb.). Bradley Martin copy.
This volume formed part of Reichenbach's ambitious attempt to describe and figure all the birds of the world, "Die Vollständige Naturgeschichte der Vögel des In- und Auslandes", usually assigned the dates 1845-1862. However, Zimmer and the AMNH list the engraved title, and a seven or eight leaf text for this volume with the date of "1836-?" which may explain why the Sotheby's catalog describing the item gave the date 1836. On page 507, Zimmer describes a work with this title and these plates and gives the dates 1845-1848. Apparently, according to Zimmer and the AMNH listing, the original text for these particular plates was simply a list of the plates and the species they illustrated. Reichenbach's ornithological works, all rare, are sufficiently complicated that A. B. Meyer wrote an entire book (Index zu L. Reichenbach's Ornithologischen Werken, Berlin, Friedlander, 1879) trying to sort them out. This volume illustrates virtually all birds with webbed feet including grebes, procellaridae, gulls, terns, sulidae, cormorants, pelicans, anatidae, and loons. The pictures are all brightly colored but most are copied, either because many were not available to Reichenbach as specimens, or perhaps because he was simply in a hurry. He did, after all, try to describe and illustrate not only every bird, but flowers as well. Indeed, he was probably better known as a botanist than as an ornithologist. The decorative engraved title page is most attractive and provides an indication of Reichenbach's skill as an artist which was considerable.
Wood, p. 531-532; Zimmer, p. 505-514. Also listed by Yale and Trinity. AMNH lists title, 7 pp. text, but lacks plates. Unlisted by Cornell, Harvard, LOC, Smithsonian.
Reichenbach, Ludovico (Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig, 1793-1879)
Icones / ad / Synopsin Avium / hucusque rite cognitarum
5. Scansoriae
B. Tenuirostres
a. Dacninae
b. Certhiinae
(c.) Trochilinae
d. Upupinae
24.7 x 18.0 cm. π629-424[$1,2 signed]; 62 ll. Pp. (4)[219]220-223[224a]224b(1)225-336. Contemporary black cloth with blind frame. Gilt lettering on spine. 1 Nov, 1853. Place (Dresden and Leipzig), publisher, not identified.
π1r, Half-title; Scansoriae. / The Climbers.-Les Grimpeurs.-Die Klettervögel / B. Tenuirostres. / The Suctorial-Birds.-Les Tenuirostres.-Die Bunnschnäbelr; π1v, blank; π2r, dedication to the brothers Verreaux; π2v, blank; 219, title, systematic index of species enumerated 530-776 (misprint, should be 775) with corresponding plate number and figure number; 224a, index by plate number with corresponding species and figure number; 225, systematic text accounts, species 530-775; 336, corrigenda. Contains 62 hand-colored engraved plates drawn by Reichenbach with engraver not identified. Plates are numbered DL-DLII, DLIb, DLIII-DLIV, DLIVb, DLV-DLXII, DLXIIb, DLXIII, DLXIIIb, DLXIV-DC, DCVIII-DCXIV. Plates DCI-DCVII are given alternative designations and listed in the index with figure numbers but without species numbers. I take this to mean that they do not cover species in this volume and have been assigned to another volume. The plates here are complete with respect to the birds described in the text. Bradley Martin copy.
This is one of the nicest volumes in the series by Reichenbach for several reasons: first, it is possible, almost easy, to read the text and then find and examine the figure; second, a higher percentage than usual of the figures is drawn "ad naturam" which in those days meant not copied, but drawn instead from a specimen; third, the species covered include such interesting colorful groups as Dacnises, Sunbirds, Hawaiian honeycreepers, Hoopoes, some Birds-of-paradise, the Huia, the Moho and the Sickle-billed Vanga. The result is that this is an exceedingly attractive book.
The text for the 246 exotic species, most poorly known at the time, is rather brief and comprises original citation, description, measurements and distribution.
Page, plate and figure numbers do not start from one because the volume is part of the Icones ad Synopsis Avium series which apparently was also known as the Handbuch der speciellen Ornithologie and was itself a component of the all encompassing Die Vollständige Naturgeschichte der Vögel. Reichenbach's ornithological works are bibliographically very complex and a single volume that contains text and pictures together as a relatively simple unit is the exception rather than the rule.
Zimmer, pp. 511-512; Trinity, p. 197. Also listed by AMNH. Unlisted by Cornell, Harvard, LOC, Yale. Smithsonian copy lacks plates.
Reichenbach, H(einrich) G(ottlieb) Ludwig (1793-1879)
Deutschlands Fauna / oder / praktisch-gemeinnützige / Naturgeschichte der Thiere / des / Inlandes / mit / naturgetreuen Abbildungen aller Arten / für / gebildete Leser aller Stände, so wie für die Schule ////// Zwiter Theil./ Die Vögel 24.2 x 16.5 cm. π[1]424324-444(-444)[$1, 2 signed];174 ll. Pp. (2)1-346. Leipzig, Verlag Wagner'schen Buchhandlun, 1839 with Kupfertafeln / für / Deutschlands Vögel, / enthalten / siebenhundert un dreissig Abbildungen nebst Erklärung / Deutschlands Fauna // Zweiter Theil π2; 1 leaf. Pp. (2). Leipzig, Wagner'schen Buchhandlung, 1842. Original publisher's dark maroon ribbed cloth with gilt lettering and roll rules on spine. Very skillfully rebacked with original spine laid down. Edges dyed yellow. Leipzig, Wagner'schen Buchhandlung, 1839-1842. Bradley Martin copy.
π1r, Title; π1v, blank; 1, classification and list of German birds; 21, literature; 23, systematic accounts; 345, description of supplementary plates LXI and LXII; π2r, atlas title; π2v, blank. Contains 55 hand-colored plates drawn by Reichenbach and engraved by "GAS" or G. A. Schwerdgeb. Numbered VIII-LXII (complete, plates I-VII depicted mammals). Figures of birds individually numbered to correspond with text.
Reichenbach was surely one of the 19th century's most ambitious naturalists. He tried to illustrate and describe all the world's known birds and flowers and was probably better known as a botanist than as an ornithologist. All his ornithological books are rare and most are bibliographically complex. He was quite a good artist but often copied antecedent figures because many species he wanted to include in his numerous works were not immediately available as specimens. The present book is quite straightforward. The systematically arranged accounts include some synonymy; a description with measurements; distribution within and outside of Germany; and details of nests and eggs. Every species is figured and the illustrations are adequate, if not artistic. The work is a very respectable German ornithology, especially considering its relative brevity. The text and plates may be considered as separate entities. The work is not considered a part of his major opus, "Die Vollständige Naturgeschichte der Vögel des In- und Auslandes (ca. 1845-63)
This book is rare.
Wood, p. 531, apparently without plates. Wood also lists (p.532) an undated "Neue vermehrte Ausgabe". Also listed by AMNH but not by Cornell, Harvard, LOC, Smithsonian, Trinity, Yale nor Zimmer.
Die Vögel Deutsch-Ost-Afrikas 29 x 20 cm. π2 (title, half-title)1-158166 [$1,2 signed]; 128 ll. Pp. (4)[1]2-250[251{errata}-252]. Contemporary half-leather, marbled boards and edges. Endpapers renewed. Geographische Verhandlung Dietrich Reimer, Berlin, 1894. Original upper wrapper included. Contains 108 text woodcut illustrations by Anna Held of which 44 are hand-colored. Blind library stamp of the U. S. Department of Agriculture on title page.
According to Zimmer, although this book is separately titled and paged, it forms part of Vol. III of Franz Stuhlmann’s Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika. I find this surprising for two reasons. First, there is no indication of such a relationship on the original upper wrapper which contains the same information as that on the title page described above. Second, at the beginning of this work, Reichenow gives a broad overview of the ornithological exploration of the region in which he discusses, amongst others, the expeditions of Emin Pascha (the assumed name of a German explorer) and of Emin Pascha and Stuhlmann. It seems to me that if this volume were part of the work describing the latter expedition, Reichenow would allude to it in a special way rather than simply as one of several significant chapters in the ornithological history of the area with no particular connection to this volume.
This is a work of high quality. Reichenow was real expert in African ornithology (he wrote the highly regarded Die Vögel Afrikas) and he gives the original reference and an authoritative description including nesting information, if available, on 728 species. He also provides family and species identification keys. The illustrations are remarkably good and, in this copy at least, the coloring is excellent. There is also a good bibliography.
Trinity, p. 197; Wood, p. 532; Zimmer, p. 515. Unlisted in Yale catalogue.
Reichenow, Anton (1847-1941)(Steinbacher, Joachim, Boeticher, Hans von)
Vogelbilder / aus fernen Zonen-Papagaien / Abbildungen und Beschreibungen Zweite neu bearbeitete und ergänzte (by Steinbacher and Boetticher) Auflage. 34.0 x 26.1 cm. Pp. [1-10]11-140[149-150]; 75 ll. Original publisher's red morocco backed cream boards with gilt head of cockatoo on upper cover, gilt lettering on spine. Pfungstadt / Darmstadt, Gottfried Helène, [1955].
1, Half-title; 2, blank; 3, title; 4, copyright, 1955; credits: printer, Buchdruckerei Jacob Helène, Pfundstadt; plates by Farbenlichtdruck, Gustav Bekedorf Spezialdruckerei, Hannover; 5, foreword to the first edition; 6, blank; 7, foreword to the second edition; 8, blank; 9, list of plates; 11, systematic list of parrots (326 species); 15-150, plates 1-34, each with explanatory text. Contains plates 1-34 in colored collotype by Bekedorf, 1-33 reproducing those in the first edition by Gustav Mützel, 34, of species often kept in captivity, by Karl Grossmann.
The first edition (1878-1883) was issued in 11 parts by Cassel: Th. Fischer. It contained 33 hand-finished chromolithographs after Gustav Mützel (1839-1893) also known for his work in Brehm's Thierleben and A. B. Meyer's Unser Auer-, Rackel- und Birkwild und seine Abarten (1887), the latter being magnificent. The original work was also issued contemporarily in a French edition. It contained brief descriptions, distributions and avicultural notes and was maintained essentially intact for this edition. However, the notes were expanded for each grouping of species, a new plate was added, and modern nomenclature (Latin, German, English, French) was employed for this second edition Many names of ornithologists are cited in the text without full references and the work suffers from lacking a bibliography. However, 326 species are discussed of which 264 are illustrated and, until the appearance of Cooper and Forshaw's Parrots of the World in 1973, this was the most complete iconography of parrots. The plates in this edition are slightly reduced in format from the original and are printed in colored collotype, an unusually demanding and expensive technique for a trade edition.
The title page of this book refers to the artist as Georg Mützel. Both Nissen (p. 194) and Anker,(p. 49) refer to him as Gustav which is the name familiar to me.
This edition listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity. Unlisted by Yale which does, however, list the original.
A / book about birds 18.0 x 13.7 cm. All printed matter contained within black-ruled frame, 14.6 x 10.2 cm. [A]2B-E8F2[$1, 2 signed]; 36 ll. Pp. [i-iii]iv[1]2-68. Original blue cloth with ornamental black (blind on lower cover) fillets enclosing central panel with, on upper cover, fine gilt vignette of eight birds surrounding circle made by gilt roll design with central title in gilt. Gilt lettering and design on spine. Lemon endpapers. AEG. London, Religious Tract Society, no date (gift inscription on upper endpaper dated December 5, 1873).
i, wood-engraved title and wood-engraved vignette; ii, blank; iii, contents; 1, birds' nests; 7, home (domestic) birds; 18, woodland birds; 26, song birds; 33, field birds; 41, water birds; 47, wading birds; 52, birds of prey; 58, foreign birds; 67, to the young reader; 68, printer designation: Benjamin Pardon and Son. Contains: six unnumbered color-printed plates, each depicting several species within decoratively frame arch; uncolored wood-engraved title vignette and three tail-pieces.
This is a religiously oriented book for children with brief essays about 33 species including European, domesticated, and particularly interesting exotic birds. The book is very attractively produced. The printed color plates appear to contain elements of aquatint, wood-engraving, and perhaps even some chromolithography. I believe these are "Baxter" prints used from about 1835-1870 and discussed (#29) with reproduced
examples in How to identify prints by Bamber Gascoigne (New York, 1986)
This is an uncommon little book, absent from most major libraries and collections. It is listed for Oxford and thought by the cataloger to have been published in the 1860s based on dates of the printer's activity. It is listed by the New York Public Library with the date "[1850]" and the statement that the plates were by J. M. Kronheim. Casey Wood lists it on page 533, without date.
Religious Tract Society (British Land Birds, Anonymous)
British Land Birds 16.2 x 10.2 cm. [B]8C-T8[$1, 2 signed save for when they correspond to a plate leaf]; 144 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-282[283-284](4, Publications of the Religious Tract Society). Original green cloth with blind-stamped decorations on both covers and gilt vignettes on upper cover and spine. Yellow endpapers. AEG. London, The Religious Tract Society, (1857?).
1, blank; 2, colored plate; 3, title; 4, printer's designation: W. Clowes and Sons; 5, preface; 13, introductory chapter; 47, Raptores; 97, Incessores or perching birds; 234, Rasores or scrapers or poultry tribe; 279, index; 283, list of engravings; 284, printer's designation. An Errata slip is inserted after p. 284. The slip is itself in error and the original designations of the illustrated birds in question are correct! Contains 12 unnumbered, hand-colored, wood-engraved plates, six of which are signed W. Dickes
I am always surprised at the high standard achieved in the publications of the British religious societies and this attractive and well written little volume is no exception. It is intended as a work for the common man and is almost entirely anecdotal yet highly readable and entertaining. The introductory chapter deals with the social habits and surmised emotions of birds. The systematic portion is quite incomplete as it treats only three "orders" of which only the perching bird group has a great many subdivisions. However, the families and most of the species comprising these "orders" are described, mostly using anecdotes relating to historical significance, life history, behaviour, and interaction with man.
William Dickes was a fine wood-engraver and color printer who did the illustrations for many publications of the religious societies. He is perhaps best known for his color-printed wood engravings in Anne Pratt's Our Native Songsters (1853). His plates in the present work are colored by hand. Mrs. Jackson, in her Wood Engravings of Birds (1978) describes the work as containing uncolored plates. They are colored in the Trinity copy. An extraordinary feature of these plates is that they are included in the pagination and signatures.
Freeman, #472; Irwin, p. 213; Trinity, p. 44 under "British Land Birds". Apparently absent from most major libraries or collections.
Religious Tract Society (Dickes, William [1815-1892], illustrator)
British birds / the water birds 16.2 x 10.4 cm. π8C-S8[$1 signed]136 ll. Pp. [1-5]6-268(4, publications of the Religious Tract Society). Publisher’s green cloth with blind frame and pattern decorations on upper cover as well as five gilt vignettes of birds (Spoonbill, Stork, Swan, Lapwing and Golden Plover). Gilt lettering and designs to spine. Yellow endpapers. London, Religious Tract Society, (1857?).
1, Blank; 2, frontispiece; 3, title; 4, blank; 5, order IV, chapter I, Grallatores or wading birds; plovers; 26, chapter 2, lapwing, turnstone, sanderling, oyster catcher; 35, chapter III, common crane, herons; 44, chapter IV, common bittern, American bittern, night heron; 53, V, storks; white spoonbill, glossy ibis; 59, VI, curlews, redleg, dusky sandpiper, green, wood, spotted and common sandpipers; 68, VII, avocet, longshanks, godwits, ruff; 79, VIII, woodcocks and snipes; 95, IX, tringas, common pratincole; 105, X, rails and gallinules; 116, XI, coots and phalaropes; 125, order V, Natatores or swimming birds; chapter I the goose tribe;138, II, swans, family of ducks; 149, III, true ducks; 167, IV, marine or oceanic ducks; 178, V, grebes and divers; 189, VI, guillemots, auks, puffins; 202, VII, cormorants, gannets; 216, VIII, gulls and terns; 227, IX, herring and common gulls; 235, X, kittiwake, great black-backed gull, skuas; 244, XI, petrels; 263, index; 268, list of engravings; 269-272, list of publications of the Religious Tract Society.
Contains 13 unnumbered, uncolored full-page woodcut plates by William Dickes, printed on one side only with both sides included in pagination. Also contains one uncolored text woodcut. 12 of the woodcut plates depict birds, one shows large net traps.
This attractive little book is a companion volume to one on land birds, published in the same year, probably 1857. A few copies of each of these were colored and my example of the land birds is one of these. The woodcut illustrations by William Dickes are pleasing. The work, though well written, is at a very elementary level.
OCLC locates only about seven examples.
Religious Tract Society (Dickes, William [1815-1892], illustrator)
British birds / the water birds 16.2 x 10.4 cm. π8C-S8[$1 signed]136 ll. Pp. [1-5]6-268(4, publications of the Religious Tract Society). Publisher’s green cloth with blind frame and pattern decorations on upper cover as well as five gilt vignettes of birds (Spoonbill, Stork, Swan, Lapwing and Golden Plover). AEG. Gilt lettering and designs to spine. Yellow endpapers. London, Religious Tract Society, (1857?).
1, Blank; 2, frontispiece; 3, title; 4, blank; 5, order IV, chapter I, Grallatores or wading birds; plovers; 26, chapter 2, lapwing, turnstone, sanderling, oyster catcher; 35, chapter III, common crane, herons; 44, chapter IV, common bittern, American bittern, night heron; 53, V, storks; white spoonbill, glossy ibis; 59, VI, curlews, redleg, dusky sandpiper, green, wood, spotted and common sandpipers; 68, VII, avocet, longshanks, godwits, ruff; 79, VIII, woodcocks and snipes; 95, IX, tringas, common pratincole; 105, X, rails and gallinules; 116, XI, coots and phalaropes; 125, order V, Natatores or swimming birds; chapter I the goose tribe;138, II, swans, family of ducks; 149, III, true ducks; 167, IV, marine or oceanic ducks; 178, V, grebes and divers; 189, VI, guillemots, auks, puffins; 202, VII, cormorants, gannets; 216, VIII, gulls and terns; 227, IX, herring and common gulls; 235, X, kittiwake, great black-backed gull, skuas; 244, XI, petrels; 263, index; 268, list of engravings; 269-272, list of publications of the Religious Tract Society.
Contains 13 unnumbered, colored woodcut plates by William Dickes, each with protective tissue leaf, the plates printed on one side only with both sides included in pagination. Also contains one uncolored text woodcut. 12 of the woodcut plates depict birds, one shows large net traps.
This attractive little book is a companion volume to one on land birds, published in the same year, probably 1857. A few copies of each of these were colored including this one and my example of the land birds. The woodcut illustrations by William Dickes are pleasing. The work, though well written, is at a very elementary level.
OCLC locates about seven copies. It’s not clear which, if any, are colored.
Richards, Harriet E. and Cummings, Emma G. (EGC for volume I only).
Baby bird-finder Two volumes, oblong, 6.0 x 10.5 cm. Numbered as folios and printed on rectos only save for prefaces to both volumes, introduction to volume II, and index for volume II. Maroon leather binding for first volume, black for second. Gilt lettering on upper covers. W. A. Butterfield, Publisher, Boston, Mass. The two volumes presented together in original publisher’s black slipcase with mounted label on upper cover.
[Volume I] 1904 A pocket guide to one hundred and ten song and insectivorous birds of / New England with blank pages for notes. Ff. (1)[1-3]4-125[126-128]. First (unpaginated) leaf, recto, blank, verso list of publications planned for “Nature Finder Series”; F1r, title; F1v, copyright information; F2, r-v, preface; F3, r-v, blank; 4-121, systematic text; 122, English index of species; 126, notice for second volume (water and game birds) to be ready in April, 1906; 127 and 128, blank leaves.
Volume II / 1906 A pocket guide to the common water and game birds and hawks and/ owls of New England with blank pages for notes. Ff. (1)[1-4]5-122; 123, index printed on both sides of leaves and containing page numbers 123- 129[130-131, blank leaves]. First (unpaginated) leaf, recto, blank, verso, list of two books in “Nature Finder Series”; F1r, title; F1v, copyright; F2r-v, preface; F3r-v, introduction by Herbert K. Job; F4r-v, blank; 5-122, systematic text; 123, suggested reading; 124-129, index (paginated as six pages not three folios)13-131, two blank folios.
According to the page I’ve designated “F1v” of the song bird book, that volume was first published in April, 1904 in a print run of 5000 copies under the copyright “Baby pathfinder to the birds”. In October, 1904 an “electrotyped and second edition” with the copyright title “Baby bird-finder” was issued.
The publication was intended as a (field) guide to the common birds of New England and the northeast. The blank pages were meant to be used for notes. English and Latin names, AOU check-list numbers, length, description and status, whether breeder or migrant, is supplied for each bird. The land bird volume contains 22 very crude outline sketches whereas the water bird volume has 27 crude half-tone photographs of preserved birds. The sketches and photographs are placed in the lower right hand corner of the page. The format of these pages clearly presages that of the field guides of Chester A. Reed and must certainly have served as his inspiration. Harriet Richards was the first Secretary of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and must certainly have known Reed as a contemporary Massachusetts ornithologist.
These volumes are fragile ephemera and now very rare. OCLC locates six copies of the two-volume set and less than 20 of the individual titles. This may well be the only example of the original publisher’s box.
Richardson, J. (1787-1865) and Gray, J. E. (1800-1875)
The Zoology of the Voyage of the H. M. S. Erebus & Terror Under the Command of Captain James Ross, R. N., F. R. S., During the Years 1839 to 1843. Birds by George Robert Gray and R. Bowdler Sharpe 31 x 25 cm.πB-C4 D2 E-F4G2 [$1, 2 signed ]; 21 ll. Pp. (2, title)[1]2-39(1). Late 20th century boards. London, E. W. Janson, 1846-1875.
Contains 37 uncolored, lithographed plates. Pp. 1-20 are in Xerox copy.
Pages 1-20 written by G. R. Gray (1800-1872), as well as 29 of the plates for this work, drawn mostly by him, were published in parts, probably in the period 1844-46. These plates were printed by “Hullmandel’s Patent Lithotype”. The text by Gray contained fairly extensive descriptions of the 101 species of birds that had been found in New Zealand and Chatham and Aukland Islands during this and antecedent voyages . In 1875, Janson issued a new title page and an appendix by Sharpe comprising pages 21-39 containing a complete list of all 162 species that had been recorded for New Zealand by that later date as well as ten species found by the expedition in areas outside New Zealand. Sharpe also added eight beautiful lithographed plates by Joseph Wolf. These plates may have been commissioned and drawn earlier, but they carry the Hullmandel and Walton imprint suggesting that they were printed nearer the later date by which time the firm’s name had been changed. Gray’s initial text and pictures are usually considered the first important work devoted specifically to the birds of New Zealand. The Sharpe addendum appeared three years after the first edition of Buller’s Birds of New Zealand.
Wheldon & Wesley apparently acquired the ornithological contents of the Janson firm sometime in the mid twentieth century and has been selling them piecemeal over the years. Evidently, in the case of this work, they possessed a supply of the 1875 title page together with Sharpe’s appendix and the complete complement of plates but lacked a comparable number of sets of Gray’s earlier text. They assembled copies of the complete work by supplying the latter in Xerox and then binding the whole.
Wood, p.536; Zimmer, p. 521, in both under Richardson. Listed in on-line catalog of Trinity but not that of Yale.
Ricker, Everett, W. (Maynard, Charles Johnson[1845-1929])
Notes / on the / Birds of Hull, / Massachusetts 15.4 x 12.1 cm. Pp. [1-3]4-36; 18 ll. Original printed brown wrappers. Newtonville (Mass), C. J. Maynard, 1896.
1, Title; 2, blank; 3, introduction; 6, catalogue; 34, appendix. Contains hand-colored, wood-engraved plates I-III and two tissue guards all not included in pagination. Plates II and III are bound opposite one another so that two tissue guards suffice to protect all three plates. Also contains four unnumbered text wood engravings, two hand-colored. All illustrations are almost certainly by and after Maynard although only the last text figure is (illegibly) designated.
Hull is at the tip of the Cohasset peninsula jutting into Boston harbor. The author had apparently owned a cottage there for eight years when he published this little unsophisticated work and one may venture a guess that he was a personal friend of Maynard, the ornithologist-publisher. The book lists 78 species with minimal annotations. The most interesting are Eskimo Curlew, seen by an acquaintance of the author, and Eurasian Kestrel, listed on the basis of a report in The Auk. The author does not give the impression of having a great deal of ornithological experience and the main interest of the book is that it was published by Maynard.
The work is rare. As early as 1923, it was described (item #678) as "very scarce" in the catalog for the auction of the Braislin collection. A catalog from the late 1930s of the Boston Bird Book Company states that only 100 copies were printed.
Wood, p. 537; Yale, p. 240. Unlisted by Zimmer, Trinity. Listed in on-line catalogs of AMNH, Harvard, absent from those of Cornell, the Smithsonian, and Trinity.
Rickman, Philip (1891-1982) (Colebrook-Robjent, Richard, editior)
A Selection of Bird Paintings / and Sketches 40.7 x 30.2 cm. Three quarter gilt-ruled green morocco with green cloth sides by Morrell. Gilt pair of smews on upper cover, gilt woodcock on lower cover. Spine with five gilt-raised ridges, gilt lettering in second and fourth compartments, two gilt ornithological designs alternated in the other four. Marbled endpapers. AEG. (London[?]), Curpotten Limited for Fine Sporting Interests Limited, 1979. The book is contained in a slipcase of green cloth covered boards with Rickman's gilt signature on the upper surface.
This unpaginated volume contains 71 leaves with printing or plates that include 32 mounted colored plates of birds, a mounted colored photograph of Rickman and reproductions of numerous pencil sketches by Rickman as follows:
First leaf: recto, blank; verso, limitation statement signed by Rickman, signifying that this is No. 347 of a total of 531 copies.
Second leaf: recto, half-title with pencil sketch; verso, mounted colored plate frontispiece.
Third leaf: recto, title; verso, copyright; printer designation: Percy Lund, Humphries and Co., Limited; binder designation: London, W. T. Morrell and Company, Limited. Pencil sketch.
Fourth leaf: recto, foreword by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh; verso, mounted colored portrait of seated Rickman.
Fifth leaf: recto, editor's note by Richard Colebrook-Robjent; verso, full-page of pencil sketches.
Sixth leaf: recto, list of colored plates, frontispiece, I-XXXI; verso, unnumbered list of 37 black and white pencil sketches and two pages, I and II, of "selected sketches". Mistakenly calls for kestrel instead of pheasant on half-title page.
Seventh leaf: recto, preface; verso, full-page of sketches.
Leaves 8-69: Each of the 31 colored plates is mounted on the recto of its own, otherwise blank leaf. Preceding each colored plate is a leaf with the number and half-title of the picture on the recto, and descriptive text, usually with a pencil sketch, on the verso facing the mounted plate. The colored plates are numbered only on the preceding leaf and the initial list, not on the print per se. Each colored plate is protected by a sturdy leaf of tissue which I have not included in my count.
70th leaf: recto, "selected sketches I"; verso, "selected sketches II", so named only in list.
71st leaf: recto, books previously illustrated by Philip Rickmans; verso, blank.
This copy also contains a blank leaf between the second plate leaf and the third half-title leaf. This is almost certainly a binder's error. There is also a single initial and two final blank leaves.
The work is a superbly produced showcase for the ornithological art of Philip Rickman, 88 years old at the time of its publication, and a former student of Thorburn and Lodge who carried on their tradition and style of painting birds. Rickman's original paintings have always been highly regarded. He published some sketch books and collaborated on some hunterly works before and after the second World War. He may be best known in the ornithological community for his 53 fine plates in A History of Sussex Birds by John Walpole-Bond (1938)..
Most of the pictures in this beautiful book are of ducks, Rickman's favorite subjects. However, I particularly enjoy his passerine birds, here represented by the Blue Tit, the Goldfinch, and the Bullfinch. The pencil sketches are also especially appealing. The text by Rickman draws often on observations at aviaries.
This book is poorly represented in libraries. The only copy I could locate is at Trinity. It is not listed at AMNH, Berkeley, BMNH, Cornell, Harvard, LOC, Oxford, the Smithsonian or Yale.
A Bird-Painter's / Sketch Book 28.0 x 23.0 Pp. [1-6]7-150; 75 ll. Original publisher's blue cloth with mounted printed label on upper cover. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode Limited, 1935. "First Cheap Edition".
1-2, blank; 3, half-title; 4, blank; 5, title; 6, dedication, printer's designation; 7, preface; 9, contents; 11, list of illustrations; 13, text; 149, bibliography. Contains 11 unnumbered, four-color half-tone plates printed on one side only with accompanying tissue sheet of letter-press not included in pagination; also contains 23 unnumbered, uncolored plates of pencil sketches printed on one side of text paper only with both sides included in text pagination. Also contains 12 pencil sketch end-pieces.
Philip Rickman was an artistic follower of Thorburn and Lodge and a contemporary of Harrison and comparable artist to J. C. Harrison. In this work, he presents sketches of 33 species together with a written description of each followed by an anecdotal text. He was a fine artist and his work frequently appears at auction in England together with those of the artists cited above. These artists may all be considered members of a certain school of realistic art that presents a sentimental, and perhaps anachronistic, picture of the English country side and its avifauna.
Rickman is perhaps best known for his illustrations in A History of Sussex Birds by John Walpole-Bond (1938), however, he authored and illustrated several other books of his bird sketches from the late 1920s through 1949. A series of his best pictures were printed to a very high standard and published as a limited edition in 1979 (A Selection of Bird Paintings and Sketches)
The present work was first issued in 1931 and this so-called "cheap edition" was issued in 1935. Although the present work is not rare, it seems to have been largely overlooked by American libraries and is unlisted by those of the AMNH, Harvard and Yale. The 1931 edition is present at Trinity.
Sketches & notes / from a / bird painter's / journal 27.4 x 21.7 cm. π[A]8B-H8[$1 signed]; 65 ll. Pp. [I-iiv]v-x[1-2]3-119(1). Publisher's gray cloth with green lettering to spine. Pictorial dust jacket. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, 1949.
i, Half-title with sketch; ii, blank; iii, title; iv, first published 1949; printed by Lowe & Brydone (Printers) Ltd, London; v, preface; vi, blank; vii, contents; viii, list of illustrations; ix, list of (40) birds included with their English and Latin names; 1, blank; 2-119, plates and accompanying text. Contains: two colored plates including frontispiece printed in half-tone on one side only of glossy paper and not included in pagination; 40 unnumbered uncolored half-tone plates on mat paper included in pagination with facing explanatory text and printed on verso with text for next (or preceding) species; 28 unnumbered, uncolored half-tone text sketches including that on half-title.
Rickman was a disciple of Thorburn and Lodge and one of the last 20th century Edwardian bird artists. His fine pencil sketches of dynamic birds going about their daily activities lend themselves well to reproduction by half-tone on mat paper and make this a very attractive book. The unhurried accompanying essays are filled with personal anecdotes while providing simultaneously some interesting aspects of the life histories of the various species.
Listed by AMNH, Cornell, Trinity, not by Harvard, Yale.
Ridgely, Robert S., and Guy Tudor.
The Birds of / South America 25,0 x 17.8 cm. Austin, The University of Texas Press.
Volume I. Oscine Passerines / Jays and Swallows / Wrens, Thrushes and allies / Vireos and Wood-Warblers / Tanagers, Icterids, and Finches. Pp. (2, blank)[i-viii]ix-xvi[1]2-492[493]494-516(2,blank). Publishers red cloth with gilt map of South America on upper cover and gilt spine. Pictorial dust Jacket. (1989)Third printing, 1997. i, Half-title; ii, volume title; iii, general title; iv, cataloging information; v, dedication; vii, contents; ix, foreword; xi, preface; xii, acknowledgments; 2, abbreviations; 3, plan; 15, habitats; 23, biogeography; 29, migration; 31-38 conservation; (unpaginated introductory leaf followed by colored plates 1-31 with facing letter press on verso of preceding leaf, the entire series unpaginated)39, species accounts; 493, appendix, casual migrants; 496, bibliography; 503, index to English names; 510, index to scientific names.
Volume II. The Suboscine Passerines / Ovenbirds and Woodcreepers / Typical and Ground Antbirds / Gnateaters and Tapaculos / Tyrant Flycatchers / Cotingas and Manakins Pp. [i-viii]ix-xii[1]2-4[5]6-814. Publisher’s green cloth decorated as volume I. Pictorial dust jacket. 1994. i, Half-title; ii, volume title; iii, general title; iv, cataloging data; v, dedication; vii, contents; ix, preface; xi, acknowledgments; 2, abbreviations; 3, plan; 5, migration; 7-19[20] conservation; (two unpaginated introductory leaves followed by colored plates 1-52 as described for volume I)21, species accounts; 781, bibliography; 795, index to English names; 805, index to scientific names.
This extraordinarily ambitious undertaking is intended as a concise handbook to cover all of South America’s approximately 3,000 species. Four volumes are projected, the final two to appear in 1999 and 2004 respectively. The species accounts include a distribution map as well as the following printed sections: identification; similar species; habitats and behavior (including song but not nest and eggs); range. Almost all species are illustrated in accurate and attractively arranged colored plates by Tudor.
Ridgley, Robert S. (1946-) (illustrated by John A. Gwynne, Jr.)
A guide to the / birds of Panama 22.9 x 15.3 cm. Pp. [i-xi]xii-xv(1)[1-3]4-394[395](1). Publisher's black cloth with white and orange lettering to spine. Pictorial dust jacket with price of $15.00 printed on upper flap. Princeton, Princeton University Press, (1976).
i, Half-title; ii, blank; iii, title; iv, copyright 1976; printed by Princeton University Press; v, dedication; vi, blank; vii, contents; viii, blank; ix, foreword by Alexander Wetmore; x, blank; xi, introduction; 1, half-title; 3, climate; 6, migration and local movement; 11, conservation; 16, plan of the book; 27-341(1), systematic accounts, Spheniscus mendiculus-Spinus psaltria, comprising about 883 species; 343, additional species of southern middle america; 350-365(1), finding birds in Panama; 369, index of English and Latin names; 395, publication data: sponsored by the International Council for Bird Preservation with the support of the Marcia Brady Tucker Foundation; ISBN 0-691-08174-3. Contains unpaginated plate section at 174/175 as follows: first leaf: recto, title "plates"; verso, letter-press for plate 1; color plates 1-32 displaying 522 species, printed in half-tone with facing letter press on verso of preceding plate. Also contains unnumbered line text drawings comprising about 105 additional species, including two full pages of raptors in flight.
At the time of publication, this book probably contained more colored figures of neotropical birds than any other. These very good drawings were executed by John Gwynne, a birding friend, artist, and classmate of Ridgley's at Princeton. It is worth noting that Bruce Beehler also attended Princeton at approximately the same time and that this book is dedicated to a Professor of Biology, Robert H. MacArthur, who may have provided the inspiration for these young men to pursue a career in ornithology. Ridgway became an authority on neotropical ornithology (The birds of South America, 1989, 1994) and Beehler on the Birds of New Guinea (1986). Was Princeton then the American version of Cambridge in 1859 when the British Ornithologists Union was conceived and formed?
The good identification plates here are accompanied by an informed text for each specise that includes: a description with length measurement; similar species; status and distribution; habits; and range. Later versions with additions appeared in 1981 and 1989.
Listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale. The latter lists a 1975 copyright and the LOC number in this volume is prefixed by 75.
A / Nomenclature of Colors / for naturalists / and / Compendium of Useful Knowledge / for ornithologists 20.8 x 14.0 cm. [1]82-8892(-92)[$1 signed]; 65 ll. Pp. [1-19]10-129(1). Original publisher's green cloth with gilt lettering on upper cover and spine. Black endpapers. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1886.
1, Title; 2, copyright and printer's designation, University Press: James Wilson and Son, Cambridge; 3, dedication to Spencer F. Baird; 4, blank; 5, list of plates; 6, blank; 7, introduction; 15, preface; 19, principles of color; 38, table of colors in various languages; 57, bibliography; 61, glossary of technical terms used in descriptive ornithology; 119, tables for converting millimetres into inches; 124, tables for converting inches into millimetres. Plates I-XVII (I-X [hand-]colored) each containing apposite thin-paper guard sheet containing descriptive letterpress.
This work really comprises two treatises, the first attempting to standardize the nomenclature of colors so that they can be explicitly used for descriptive purposes, the second providing an overall guide for the presentation of descriptive ornithology. In 1912, Ridgway published a second work restricted to the nomenclature of colors and expanding considerably on that subject.
There is an extraordinary array of unusual information in this work. In addition to primary combinations, the colored plates depict 186 named swatches of color for each of which the composition is given. Seven swatches on plate II, numbered 14-20, are lacking explanatory letterpress. A table gives the names of numerous colors in English, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Norwegian and Danish.
In the part on descriptive ornithology, in addition to an enormous glossary, we are enlightened concerning foreign measurements such as the French Pied du Roi and the Leipzig, Rhineland and Swedish foot, each of which has been used in an older important work of descriptive ornithology and all of which differ from one another.
Trinity, 598.2 R436; Wood, p. 538; Yale, p. 241; Unlisted by Zimmer.
Ridgeway, Robert (1850-1929), Goering, A.(nton), Muetzel, Gustav
North American / birds / 36 colored plates / after water-color paintings / by / Prof. Robert Ridgeway / Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. / Prof. A. Goering, Leipzig / and Gustav Muetzel, Berlin. 31.0 x 23.0. Pp. No text. Contains chromolithographed plates I-XXXVI (12 after Ridgeway, 13 after Goering, 11 after Muetzel). Original publisher’s off-white wrappers, the lithographed upper wrapper with dark green double frame, printing and ornithological vignette. Milwaukee, Geo. Brumder, (1889?).
This remarkable item contains the 36 colored plates which were published in Heinrich Nehrling’s Die Nordamerikanische Vogelwelt….(Brumder, 1889-1891, 13 parts) and its English version, Our native birds of song and beauty….(1889-1896, 16 parts). Neither Nehrling’s name, nor the titles of his work appear on the printed wrapper which contains the only printed information about the album.
It was the rule rather than the exception in the 20th century to publish the plates from beautifully illustrated books as separate suites of plates after the appearance of the works in which they first appeared. However, that was not the case in the 19th century when the plates were produced by lithography or engraving rather than by color half-tone. The present example may be the first where such a suite was issued independent of the work it was intended to illustrate. For example, I’ve never seen as independent suites the lithographed plates illustrating works by Studer and Gentry, nearly contemporary and quite comparable to Nehrling’s book.
It is interesting that Ridgway’s name is incorrectly spelled on the wrappers.
I can find no listing of the present suite which must be extremely rare with its original wrapper.
Color Standards / And / Color Nomenclature 22.1 x 15.0 cm. Pp. 3PL (1, gray card, recto title with colored design, verso blank; 2r, title; 2v, copyright and printer designation: A. Hoen & Co., Baltimore; 3r, dedication; 3v, blank.)[i]ii-iii[iv][1]2-43[44]; 27 ll. Original publisher's green cloth with gilt lettering on upper cover and spine. Washington, by the Author, 1912.
i, preface; iv, contents; 1, prologue; 29, alphabetical list of colors; 41, colors not shown but represented in the author's previous (1886) work on the subject; 42, bibliography; 44, cautionary note on light sensitivity. Contains unpaginated plates I-LIII on gray card each with tissue guard and nine rows containing three mounted color samples. The upper and lower rows show only white and black respectively so the total of named colors is 1115 although there are 1431 colored mounts. Also contains a slip laid in loosely entitled "EPLANATION OF PLATES XXII AND XXIV" in which these plates are described as "extras"
Robert Ridgway passion for order is evident in all of his works, nowhere moreso than in those devoted to the standardization of color nomenclature. Unlike his first work (1886)on the subject which also contained some ornithological information, this one is devoted entirely to color. Some of the aspects he covers include measurement of color mixtures; construction of spectrum scale; color names and trade names; color terms such as hue, tint, shade and tone; composition of broken colors; and dyes and pigments for the 36 colors of the "pure spectrum scale" which is the basis of his color-scheme.
In the work of 1886, the individual colors were painted directly onto squares drawn on the paper by "hand-stenciling" and one can actually see the brush markings. Ridgway tells us that this not a truly reproducible method and that copies of that book contained different representations of what was intended to be a single color. In the case of the present book, the mounted squares of color appear to have been cut from a larger uniform sample of the color. Brush strokes are not evident but there is some transfer of color to the tissue guards.
This work is considered a classic of its subject. The card title page and the laid in slip appear to be absent from the copies cited below.
A / Manual / of / North American Birds 23.7 x 18.0 cm. π71-794[$1 signed]; 323 ll. Pp. [i-ii]iii-iv(2, obituary eulogy for Spencer F. Baird)v-xi(1)1-631(1). Original maroon cloth with gilt head of bird of prey and title on upper cover, gilt lettering on spine. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1887.
i, Title; ii, copyright; iii, preface; v, contents; vii, introduction; 1, systematic text; 583, appendix; 595, index. Contains photogravure frontispiece of Spencer Baird and uncolored plates I-CXXIV printed on both sides of 62 unpaginated leaves with 464 outline drawings of generic characters.
Ridgway and Coues were the most Victorian of the 19th century American ornithologists and their outputs were prodigious. Ridgway was also a gifted ornithological draughtsman and doubtless was responsible for the depictions of generic characters found in the plates at the end of the present work. I'm not certain how these plates were produced but they do not appear to be lithographs or engravings.
This work presents the criteria for orders, families and genera and carefully describes every North American species including its measurements and distribution. Color is referenced to a work on that subject that Ridgway had just published and that he expanded in 1912. In general, the recently completed AOU check list was used as the determinant for inclusion of species, however, Ridgway specifically chose to include various extralimital birds from Mexico, the Bahamas, and Cuba thinking that perhaps they might someday be recorded within North America. The appendix includes additions as well as changes in status and nomenclature of species that were included on the AOU check list. Ridgway makes a point of being particularly concise in this work. He was later to be the major contributor to a more detailed magnum opus with Herbert Friedmann, The Birds of North and Middle America…(1901-1950).
Trinity, p. 199; Wood, p. 538; Yale, p. 241; Zimmer, p. 524.
Ridgway, Robert (1850-1929) et al.
”Ornithology” A volume, so named on its spine, containing 11 offprints as described below from Proceedings of the United States National Museum and Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Ca. 23.0 x 15.4 cm. Black binder’s cloth with two red morocco labeling pieces on spine with gilt lettering. Washington and New York, 1893-1899.
Ridgway, Robert Birds of the Galapagos archipelago Pp. 459-670. Original gray printed wrappers. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1896. Proc. U. S. Nat’l Museum, XIX, pp 459-670. Contains uncolored plates (line sketches) LVI-LVII. No. 1116.
Ridgway, Robert Descriptions of some new birds collected / on the islands of Aldabra and assump / tion, northwest of Madagascar, / by Dr. W. L. Abbott. Pp. 597-600. Original gray printed wrappers. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1893. Proc. of the U. S. Nat’l Museum, XVI, pp. 597-600. No. 953
Richmond, Charles W. Catalogue of a collection of birds made / by Doctor W. L. Abbott in Madagas-/ car, with descriptions of three new species Original gray printed wrappers. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1897. Proc. U. S. Nat’l Museum, XIX, 677-694 No. 1118.
Worcester, Dean C. and Bourns, Frank S. M. D. Contributions to Philippine / ornithology Original grey printed wrappers.Proc. U. S. Nat’l Museum XX, Pp. 549-625. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1898. Contains uncolored plates (maps and diagrams) LV-LXI. No 1134.
Stejneger, Leonhard The birds of the Kuril Islands Proc. Nat’l Museum XXI Pp. 269-296 Original grey printed wrappers. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1898. No. 1144.
Oberholser, Harry C. Notes on birds from the Cameroons District, West Africa. Original grey printed wrappers. Proc. Nat’l Museum U. S. Pp. 11-19. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1899. No. 1180.
Oberholser, Harry C. A list of the birds collected by Mr. R. P. / Currie in Liberia Original grey printed wrappers. Proc. Nat’l Museum Pp. 25-37 Washington, Government Printing Office, 1899. Contains uncolored photographic plate VII. No. 1182.
Chapman, Frank M. Notes on birds observed in Yucatan Original grey printed wrappers. Bull. Amer. Museum of Natural History, VIII pp. 271-290, New York, December 11, 1896.
Chapman, Frank M. Notes on birds observed at Jalapa and / Las Vigas, Vera Cruz, Mexico. Original grey printed wrappers. Bull. Amer. Museum of Natural History, X, pp. 15-43, New York, February 24, 1898. Contains uncolored photographic plate III.
Chapman, Frank M. Descriptions of five apparently new / birds from Venezuela. Original grey printed wrappers. Bull. Amer. Museum of Natural History, XII, pp. 153-156. New York, August 5, 1899.
Shufeldt, R. W. Taxidermical methods in the Leyden / museum, Holland Original tan printed wrappers Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1895, pp. 1031-1037, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1897. Contains uncolored photographic plates 1-6.
The / ornithology / of / Illinois Two volumes 25.2 x 18.0 cm. Original publisher's green cloth with triple blind-ruled frame enclosing central gilt bird of prey on upper cover. Gilt lettering on spine. Natural History Survey of Illinois, State Laboratory of Natural History, S. A. Forbes, Director. Published by Authority of the State Legislature. Springfield, Ill., H. W. Rokker, Printer and Binder.
Volume I. 1889. Part I. Descriptive catalogue by Robert Ridgway Part II. Economic ornithology by S. A. Forbes. π4[1]82-328334[$1 signed]; 264 ll. Pp. [i-iii]iv-viii[1-3]4-520; i, Title; ii, blank; iii, general introduction by Forbes; vi, blank; vii, contents; 1, half-title for descriptive catalogue; 1, preface; 7, introduction; 36, bibliography; 43, remarks on catalogue; 44, keys to higher groups; 47, systematic annotated catalogue, Turdus mustelinus-Zenaida macrourus; 501, errata; 502, index of common and scientific names. Contains chromolithographic frontispiece of meadowlark after Ridgway by Giles Litho & Liberty Printing Co., N. Y., and uncolored plates I-XXXII, some anatomical, that are reproductions of wood cuts lent by the Smithsonian Institution. These are bound at rear and printed on one side only.
Volume II. 1895. Part I. (concluded). π2[1]42-354362; 143 ll. Pp. (4)[1-2]3-282. π1r, Title; π1v, blank; π2r, contents; π2v, blank; 1 half-title for descriptive catalogue; 3, systematic catalogue, Meleagris gallopavo-Podilymbus podiceps; 267, index. Contains uncolored plates I-XXXIII.
Ridgway, a protégé of Spencer Baird, was a prolific author, quite a good illustrator, and a very highly regarded ornithologist,. He grew up in southeastern Illinois but spent little time in the state as an adult and relied completely upon the collection of birds from Illinois in the National Museum and on notes of other observers for those parts of the present work which deal specifically with the status of various species in the state. There are extensive keys for higher orders and for species in this work which seem inappropriate for a state bird book as do the numerous anatomical plates. The accounts of species include considerable synonymy and a detailed section on specific characters with numerous measurements. There is often a considerable life history, sometimes including even careful egg measurements. However, the section on the status in Illinois is usually weak.
The "Part II Economic Ornithology" referred to on the title page of the first volume, was never published.
The work was reprinted in 1913.
Wood, p. 538; Zimmer, p 317 (under "Illinois"). Also listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale.
Ripley, S(idney) Dillon (1913-2001) (paintings by Lansdowne, J(ames) Fenwick [1936-]; chapter on fossil rails by Olson, Storrs L.)
Rails of the world / a monograph of the family Rallidae 35.6 x 25.6 cm. [i-x]xi-xx[1-2]3-406[407-409](1). Original publisher's gilt-ruled red buckram-backed beige cloth. Gilt lettering, gilt black labeling area and gilt rail design on spine. Brown patterned endpapers. Pictorial dust jacket. Toronto, M. F. Feheley Publishers Limited, (1977).
i-ii, blank; iii, half-title; iv, blank; v, blank; vi, colored frontispiece of takahe; vii, title; viii, copyright 1977; ISBN 0-919880-07-X; ix, dedication with uncolored vignette; x, blank; xi, contents; xii, color plates, distribution maps; xiv, blank; xv, introduction; 1, half-title; 3, characteristics of rails; 15, distribution; 23, evolution and speciation; 31, keys to genera and systematic accounts of 129 species; 339, synopsis of fossil Rallidae by Storrs Olson; 375, literature cited (approximately 380 references); 391, index to local and common names; 396, index to scientific names; 407, vignette; 408, blank; 409, colophon: designed by Crimilda Pontes, produced under the direction of Martino Mardersteig at Stamperia Valdonega, Verona, Italy; colour separations by Parabolik, Milan. Contains: frontispiece and plates 1-40, so numbered in list and on facing letter-press, printed on recto only in color half-tone and included with letter-press in pagination; text distribution maps 1-17; uncolored half-tone photographs 1-10 printed two per page on three leaves, the last page blank; uncolored half-tone text figures 1-26 of fossil birds and parts; uncolored text figure of Himantornis haemotopus chick by Alice R. Tangerini. This copy has a duplicate of plate 27.
The family of rails is of special interest because many of its weak flying or flightless members are insular or live in isolated populations. They provide an opportunity for studying speciation and evolution and give rise to many subspecies. This is the first monograph of the family and will likely remain the authoritative work for some time. Ripley, an ornithologist who was Curator at the Peabody Museum and later Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, has provided an exhaustive treatise with much attention devoted to subspecies. Every known aspect of the lives of these secretive birds is described. The finely drawn portraits represent an important scientific commission for Landsdowne and he was well chosen.
This work is listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity and Yale.
Robart, J. B. (fl. 1817[?])
Original watercolor painting of two birds. Image size 19.2 x 21.2 cm. Wove paper mounted on painted cardboard frame, 24.0 x 26.2 cm.
This painting, almost certainly French, depicts two red birds with green wings and black caps that resemble lories in coloration but with finch-like bills. The birds are painted from poorly stuffed specimens. The style and perspective are late 18th century. The image is mounted on cardboard that is decorated with rules including one of gilt, to simulate a frame. At the base, is a painted decoration enclosing the painted lettering "J. B. Robart". The back of the image is signed at the base "J. B. Robart f." in old ink. There is also, at the left margin, a partially cropped notation in the same hand that resembles " 6 le Keningen 1817". On the back of the cardboard a dealer has written in pencil "LB Robart / Dated 1817".
Neither Ronsil nor Christine Jackson list Robart in any of their works.
Les Oiseaux de Chez Nous Premier Portefeuille. 54 x 40 cm. 38 Colored plates mounted on 23 gray sheets contained in original paper portfolio with printed title, artist’s name, publisher and place of publication on upper cover. Text 22 x 15 cm. Pp. [1-3]4-32. Original printed wrappers with “Texte monographique se rapportant aux planches du premier portefeuille, adapté par P. Robert, fils” on upper cover and contained within pouch on obverse of upper wrap of portfolio. Neuchatel, Delachaux & Niestlé S. A. (? 1929).
Paul Robert was the most highly regarded Swiss ornithological artist at the turn of the century. He was the winner of an important Parisian prize in the late 1870s and became well known with the publication of 60 fine plates issued with a French text by Rambart as Les Oiseaux dans la Nature (1878-1880) and with a German text by O. von Riesenthal as Gefiederte Freunde (1880-1883). 20 Of these pictures also appeared in Harting’s Glimpses of Bird Life (1880) which I possess. The illustrations in these early works were printed in chromolithography by Lemercier and problems were caused by adhesions to adjacent leaves. After the artist’s death, his son Paul, also an ornithologist and artist, selected some of his father’s finest paintings, had them well reproduced in color half-tone, and issued them in four portfolios of which this is the first. The complete set contained 135 plates on 92 sheets. Each plate depicts a single European species in a characteristic dynamic activity and posture. There is much artistic innovation and inventiveness. For example, light birds against dark near backgrounds, impressionistic distant backgrounds etc. The pictures are all outstanding. In this portfolio, they depict Passerine birds save for two woodpeckers and a bee-eater. The text provides a complete non-technical account of the illustrated species.
According to Wheldon & Wesley catalogue No. 195 (1991), item #94, the work is "extremely rare", however, I have encountered it several times. It was also issued as Unsere Einheimische Vögel with a German text.
Trinity, p. 201; Yale, p. 242.
Roberts, Thomas S.(adler)(1858-1946) (color plates by Allan Brooks; George Miksch Sutton; Walter Alois Weber; Francis Lee Jaques; Walter John Breckenridge; including one by the late Louis Agassiz Fuertes)
The / birds of Minnesota Two volumes. 27.7 x 21.5 cm. Quarter brown morocco and fine, tan, textured cloth sides by William Kittredge, Lakeside Press, Chicago. Spine with elaborate gilt decoration and lettering. Yellow endpapers with flying geese design. TEG. Housed in original decoratively patterned brown paper covered card slipcase. Designation Museum of Natural History . University of Minnesota at top of title pages. Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota Press and London, Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1932.
Volume I Pp. [i-viii]ix-xxii, unpaginated leaf, 1-691(1), unpaginated leaf. i, Half-title; ii, blank; iii, titlel; iv, copyright 1932; limitation statement, this copy number 240/300 signed by Roberts; printed and lithographed in the United States of America by McGill Lithography Company, Minneapolis; v, foreword by Lotus D. Coffman, President, University of Minnesota; vi, blank; vii, contributors (24) to the Thomas S. Roberts Fund for publication; viii, blank; ix, contents; x, list of color plates; xii, list of text illustrations; xvii, list of maps; xvii-xxii, systematic list of treated birds with page numbers; unpaginated leaf: recto, half-title; verso, blank; 1, historical and biographical view of Minnesota ornithology; 19, acknowledgments; 27, introduction, geography; 50, synopsis of bird-life; 84, conservation including economic value, morbidity and mortality; 118, bird songs; 121, bird banding; 128, general comments and explanations; 137-691(1), systematic accounts of nonpasserine birds (Gavia immer-Picoides tridactylus); unpaginated leaf: recto, "color plates"; verso, blank. Contains: colored frontispiece and colored plates 1-49 printed in seven-color half-tone on one side only; text figures 1-298 comprising mostly uncolored half-tone photographs and line drawings; five unnumbered, uncolored text maps.
Volume II Pp. [i-iv]v-xv(1), unpaginated leaf, 1-821(1), unpaginated leaf. I, Half-title; ii, blank; iii, title iv, copyright, signed limitation statement, credit; v, contents; list of color plates; vi, list of text illustrations; xii-xv(1), systematic list of treated species; unpaginated leaf: recto, half-title; verso, blank; 1-455(1), systematic accounts of (157) passerine birds (Tyrannus tyrannus-Plectrophenax nivialis); 457, keys and descriptions for identification of Minnesota's birds; 733, bibliography (abridged, annotated, about 800 entries listed in temporal sequence followed by index of authors following the model of Coues); 793-821(1), general index including alphabetical nomenclature for generic and common names; unpaginated leaf: recto "color plates"; verso, blank. Contains: colored frontispiece and colored plates 50-90; uncolored text illustrations 299-306.
The total of 92 colored plates are after Brooks (38); Weber (27); Breckenridge (14); Jaques (8); Sutton (4), and Fuertes (1). The explanation for the sequence transcribed above from the title page is unclear.
This book may be considered a complete handbook of the birds of Minnesota and is one of the great state bird books of the first half of the 20th century, rivaling those by Eaton for New York (1909-1914); Dawson for Washington (1911) and California (1923); and Forbush for Massachusetts (1925-1929). Under each species heading in the systematic section of accounts, the author attempts to cover the following subjects: general range; Minnesota range; Minnesota migration dates; Minnesota nesting dates; nest structure; egg appearance; food preferences; field marks; and a general discursive section on life history replete with personal observations. A very extensive description with numerous measurements is included in the section with identification keys. The scholarly and highly annotated bibliography uses the format first employed by Coues.
The beautiful plates are very attractively printed in seven colors.
A second, basically identical edition of the work was published in 1936 and the colored plates with various synopses of the text were reprinted several times later in the 20th century.
First edition listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale although none list the present limited edition format.
(revised by G.(eoffrey)R.(oy) McLachlan, R.(ichard) Liversidge; plates in color by Norman C. K. Lighton and Kenneth Newman; black and white illustrations by J. Adams and H. Grönvold)
Roberts birds / of South Africa 21.5 x 14.9 cm. Pp. [i-iv]v-xxxii1-659(1). Publisher's green cloth-covered boards, gilt lettering to spine. Green endpaper maps. Pictorial dust jacket. Cape Town, Trustees of the John Voelcker Bird Book Fund, 1980.
I, half-title; ii, blank; iii, title; iv, list of editions and impressions, the present volume being the third impression of the fourth edition; ISBN 0 620 03118 2; printer designation: Cape & Transvaal Printers (Pty) Ltd., Cape Town; v, forward to first edition by J. C. Smuts dated 1938; vi, blank; vii, contents; ix, list of colour plates; x, preface to fourth edition by C. S. Barlow dated February 1978; xi, editors' preface to fourth edition; xii-xvi, subscribers to De luxe and Subscribers' Editions (the present volume being the standard, unsubscribed edition); xvii, introduction including bibliography (29 entries), historical notes; xxix, descriptive terms; xxxi, list of doubtful species; 1-617(1), species accounts, Struthio camelus-Emberiza cabanisi, species 1-875; 619, index to English names; 629, index to generic and specific names; 651, Afrikaanse names. Contains colored plates 1-72 including frontispiece (41 by Lighton, 31 by Newman) printed in half-tone on both sides of 35 leaves and one side of two, not included in pagination. Facing letter-press for plates contains running text on obverse and is paginated. Also contains line figures I-XII of parts of a bird and unnumbered marginal line text figures illustrating parts or nests of about 133 species and marginal distribution maps for almost all species.
This is one of the most enduring of regional treatises, having gone through numerous editions and impressions and still in print 60 years after it first appeared. Many new colored plates by Kenneth Newman were added for the fourth edition which was first printed in 1978. The work can be considered a handbook. The following information is given, where appropriate, for each species: measurements; identification; global distribution, a local distribution map, and a statement of status; habits; food; voice; breeding; figure, usually colored.
Some edition(s) of this book is present in most ornithological collections and libraries. The original printing of June 1940 is uncommon.
The / Birds of / South Africa 22.0 x 15.5 cm.[a]8 b8 A-2F8 [$1 signed]; 248 ll. Pp. [i-vi]vii-xxix[xxx]xxxi-xxxii1-463(1). Original blue cloth. Dust jacket. Published for the trustees of the South African Bird Book Fund. London: H. F. & G. Witherby. Johannesburg: The Central News Agency Ltd. 1940. Printed for Witherby by the Riverside Press, Edinburgh.
i, Half-title; iii, title; v, foreword by Jan Smuts; vii, contents; x, list of plates; xi, South African Bird Book Fund; xiii, list of (114) subscribers; xv, introduction; xxx, anatomical diagrams; xxxi, descriptive terms; xxxii, signs and abbreviations; 1, species accounts; 375, index of Latin names; 424, index of English names; 447, index of Afrikaans names; 457, index of native names. Contains colored plates I-LVI after Norman C. K. Lighton. These are not included in the pagination and are printed on one side only. This copy signed on title page by both author and artist.
This is the original edition and first impression of an extremely influential and important work that could be viewed as a field guide or a handbook. It covers 875 species, had sold more than 100,000 copies as of 1976, and is still (1998) in print, having gone through four editions and numerous impressions. It is to South Africa what Peterson’s guide is to North America. This first issue must be quite uncommon (probably 2000 copies or fewer) since it appeared in June and a second impression was issued as early as December of 1940 despite worldwide preoccupation with the advent of the second World War. Later editions were printed in South Africa as opposed to England.
In addition to being signed by author and artist, this copy has another claim to special significance for African ornithology. It is inscribed on the front end paper “Dearest Dad / With love & birthday / greetings from / Con & Molly”. Laid in loosely is a postcard dated Nyasaland, 5/5/48, from Molly to Brigadier R. Benson from which we can learn that Molly’s husband and the Brigadier’s son is Con Benson, a distinguished ornithologist and the author of various books and articles on the birds of Central Africa amongst them, The Birds of Zambia (London, 1971).
LSU, 1202; Trinity, p. 201; Yale, p. 243. (All later editions)
Roberts, Thomas S(adler)(1858-1946) (color plates by Allan Brooks; George Miksch Sutton; Walter Alois Weber; Francis Lee Jaques; Walter John Breckenridge; Louis Agassiz Fuertes)
Bird portraits / in color / two hundred ninety-five / North American species 27.7 x 21.5 cm. Pp. [i-ii]iii-vi followed by 101 unpaginated leaves as elaborated below. Original publisher's tan cloth with henna design of canada geese on upper cover, henna lettering on upper cover and spine. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, London, Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934.
i, Title; ii, vignette of geese; copyright 1934; printed and lithographed by the McGill Lithograph Company, Minneapolis; iii, introduction; (7-192), section title leaf and 92 plates with facing text; (193-206), index of English, local and Latin names; (207), "notes"; Contains two line illustrations in text and 92 colored plates 1-8, 81/2; 9-46, 461/2, 47-90 printed on recto with facing text on verso of antecedent plate. The plates are after Brooks (38), Weber (27); Breckenridge (14), Jaques (8), Sutton (4) and Fuertes (1). They are very attractively printed, probably by multicolor gravure.
This is an abbreviated version of Roberts's Birds of Minnesota, which was first published in 1932 and went out of print almost immediately. The condensation was rapidly assembled and printed and then a second edition of the complete work was published in 1936. The condensed work was reprinted with a slightly different title page in 1936 and in the 1940s, and was issued in 1960 with a revised text.
The original two-volume work was one of the major state bird books of the first half of the 20th century ranking with Dawson's Birds of Washington (1911) and Birds of California (1923), Eaton's Birds of New York (1909-1914) and Forbush's Birds of Massachusetts (1925-1929). The plates here are from the same stock as those used in the original edition and represent one of the nicer 20th century atlases of American birds. The facing text provides a brief essay on each species.
This original printing listed by AMNH, Cornell, Yale. Harvard, Trinity list later versions.
Robinson, Herbert C.(hristopher)(1874-1929), Chasen, Frederick N.(utter (1896-1941), Medway, Lord (Cranbrook, Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy, Earl of), (1933-) Wells, Dr. David R.
The birds / of the / Malay peninsula / a general account of the birds / inhabiting the region from the / Isthmus of Kra to Singapore with / the adjacent islands Five volumes. 27. 2 x 19.3 cm. Original publisher's red cloth with peripheral blind frame. Gilt lettering on upper cover and spine. TEG, others uncut. London, H. F. & G. Witherby (last volume in association with Penerbit Universiti, Malaya)
Volume I: the commoner birds 1927. By Herbert C. Robinson. [a]8b-c8d2A-U8X6(-X6)[$1 signed]; 191 ll. Pp. [i-iv]v-l(2)1-329(1). i, Volume half-title; ii, blank; iii, title; iv, published 1927; v, preface; vii, contents; viii, blank; ix, list of plates; xiii, geography; xxx, zoogeography; xxxii, history of local ornithology; xxxv, nomenclature; xlii, migration; xliii, bibliography; xlix, list of birds (families); d2r, volume half-title; d2v, blank; 1, species accounts, Galliformes-Zosteropidae; 319, general index. Contains uncolored map by Stanford's Geographical establishment, plates 1-25 in color half-tone after H. Grönvold all printed on one side only and not included in pagination.
Volume II: the birds of the hill stations 1928. By Herbert C. Robinson a8b4A-T8U4(-U4); 167 ll. Pp. [i-iv]v-xxii(2)1-310. i, Volume half-title; ii, blank; iii, title; published July, 1928; v, preface; vii, contents; viii, blank; ix, list of plates; xii, blank ; xiii, geography; xix, bibliography; xxi, list of birds (families); b4r, volume half-title; b4v, blank; 1, species accounts, Galliformes-Nectariniidae; 299, general index. Contains uncolored unattributed map and plates 1-25 of which 23 in color half-tone, two uncolored after Grönvold.
Volume III: sporting birds; birds of the shore and estuaries; 1936. By the late Herbert C. Robinson and Frederick N. Chasen. [a]8b4A-Q8R4; 144 ll. Pp. [i-iv]v-xix[xx-xxi](3)1-264. i, Volume half-title; ii, blank; iii, title; iv, published May, 1936; v, preface; vi, blank; vii, contents; viii, blank; ix, list of plates; xi, geography; xx, blank; xxi, list of families; b4r, volume half-title; b4v, blank; 1, species accounts, Galliformes-Steganopodes; 249, general index; 263, index to native names. Contains map by Stanford's Establishment and colored plates 1-25.
Volume IV: the birds of the low counrty / jungle and scrub / (with a notice of all species occurring in the lowlands) 1939. By Frederick N. Chasen [a]8b6A-2G82H4; 258 ll. Pp. [i-iv]v-xxvi(2)1-485[486-487](1). i, Volume half-title; ii, blank; iii, title; iv, published May, 1939; v, preface; viii, blank; ix, contents; x, blank; xi, list of plates; xiv, blank; xv, geography; xxiv, blank; xxv, list of orders and families; b6r, volume half-title; b6v, blank; 1, species accounts, Heliornithidae-Steganopodes; 421, appendix, summary of birds described in volume III; 455, general index; 487, index to native names. Contains uncolored map by Stanford's Establishment and colored plates 1-25.
Volume V; conclusion and survey of every species 1976. By Lord Medway and Dr. David R. Wells. In pictorial dust jacket. A-P16[$1, 5 signed]; 240 ll. Pp. i, Volume half-title; ii, blank; iii, title; iv, copyright 1976; credits: printed by Broadwater Press, Ltd., Herts.; color plates by Wither by & Co., Ltd, London; v, preface; ix, contents; x, blank; xi, list of plates; xiii, list of maps; xiv-xviii, five uncolored full-page maps; xix, gazetteer; xxvii, introduction; 1, resident birds by David R. Wells; 35, migratory birds by Lord Medway; 73, list of families; 75, systematic section, half-title: 77, systematic section: Podicipedidae-Emberizidae; 399, appendix, controversial records; 407, bibliography; 425, index of names and synonyms. Contains one inserted double-page(two leaves inserted at xvi/xvii) unattributed colored map, colored frontispiece and colored plates 1-24 printed on 12 leaves after Grönvold, all not included in pagination. The complete work contains 125 plates of which 123 colored.
This work, a magnum opus of the 20th century, was the only source for an illustrated account of Malaysian, and most Southeast Asian birds until commercialization of birding trips and the appearance of King and Dickinson's Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia (1975). It attempts to provide, for every species; synonymy; local names; a description including soft parts and measurements; range in the Malay peninsula; extralimital range; and notes on nidification, eggs, and habits. In the preface to volume V, Lord Medway and Wells describe the history of the entire work. Chasen died in 1941 when the ship by which he was attempting to leave Singapore was sunk by Japanese action. Thought to have been lost with him were manuscripts for a detailed taxonomic work and perhaps for volume V of the present work.
The publisher, Harry Forbes Witherby (1873-1944), was a keen amateur ornithologist and his firm produced outstanding ornithological works throughout the 20th century including Godman's Monograph of the Petrels (1907-1910), Mathews's Birds of Australia with its supplements (1910-1936), Taka-Tsukasa's The Birds of Nippon (1932-1941) as well as Witherby's own great Handbook of British Birds (1938-1941)
Wood, p. 540 (first two volumes); Also listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale (lacking volume V).
A Flying Trip to the / Tropics / A Record of an Ornithological Visit / to the / United States of Colombia, South America / and to the Island of Curaçao / West Indies / in the Year 1892 23.3 x 17.0 cm. No signatures. Pp. [i-iii]iv-x[1]2-194; 102 ll. Original publisher's blue cloth with black block lettering on upper cover, black lettering on spine. Upper cover with silver embossed design of yellow-billed tropic bird (text figure, p. 11) from Keulemans. Olive green endpapers. TEG. Cambridge (Mass), Riverside Press, 1895.
i, Title; ii, copyright; printer designation: Electrotyped and printed by O. Houghton & Co. iii, preface; v, contents; vi, blank; vii, list of illustrations; 1, narrative; 150, results of the trip including lists of bird species in Colombia (91) and Curaçao (23); 168, suggestions for traveling and collecting in the tropics; 177, appendix containing bibliographies on Colombia, Colombian zoology, and Curaçao. Contains two fine inserted maps, one of Curaçao that is double-paged and partially color-printed by Sackett & Wilhelms Litho. Co. NY, the other of Colombia, folding and colored by hand and stencil (?) by Wm Bradley, Philadelphia; four fine unnumbered chromolithographs of birds drawn by J. G. Keulemans and printed by Mintern Bros. Chromo lith. London; and about 105 unnumbered text illustrations comprising mostly photographs and sketches of which 21 are ornithological including five after Keulemans and four after Gustav Mützel.
This is an interesting travel narrative by a career military man with an interest in ornithology. Robinson spent more than a month traveling in Colombia and Curaçao and collected more than 200 skins of birds. With Robert Ridgway's assistance, he was able to present something of an annotated list in the chapter on "Results." This is not a book that breaks new ornithological ground but it is very well produced and attractive with many anecdotal photographs as well as excellent drawings of birds and animals. These were done mostly by Keulemans and Mützel. Robinson writes on page iv, that "the illustrations, with a few exceptions which are noticed in the text, have been drawn expressly for this work…." However, I'm quite certain that I have seen those by Mützel elsewhere, perhaps in the Riverside Natural History which was published by an associated firm (Houghton, Mifflin).
This book and A Chapter on Bird by Richard Bowdler Sharpe and published the same year (1895) are the only two of which I know that contain a picture by Keulemans as an integral part of the upper cover.
Wood, p. 540. Also listed by AMNH, Harvard, Trintiy, Yale but not Cornell, Zimmer.
Rochbrune, Alphonse Tremeau de, (1834-)
Faune / de la / Sénégambie (general and half-title) 26.3 x 16.6 Three (of five) parts in one volume. Twentieth century linen-backed marbled boards, marbled endpapers.
First bound part (Poissons): π4[1]8 2-108114 [$1 signed]; 88 ll. Pp. (8, half-title, title including Poissons, dedication, preface dated Paris, 2 Janvier, 1882)[1]2-166(2, explanation of plates). Paris, Octave Doin, Bordeaux, J. Durand, 1883. 1, General considerations; 15, species accounts (336 species); 159, systematic list. Contains six hand-colored lithographs (Planches I-VI) by Imp. Becquet after Formant.
Second bound part (Reptiles): π21-138148(-148); 113 ll. Pp. (4, title including Reptiles, half-title)[1]2-221[222]. Paris, Octave Doin, 1884. 1, General considerations; 11, species accounts (345); 211, systematic list; 219, explanation of plates. Contains hand-colored lithographic plates I-XX (XII torn with some loss of substance) by Becquet Fr. after Terrier.
Third bound part (Oiseaux): π2162-248; 192 ll. Pp. (4, title including Oiseaux, half-title)[1]2-370(2, blank)[1]2-6(2, blank). Paris, Octave Doin, 1884. 1, General considerations; 23, species accounts (686); 355, systematic list; 1, explanation of plates. Contains 30 (I- XXX, 23 of birds, one of nest and eggs, three of eggs, three of feathers) hand-colored lithographic plates after Terrier by Becquet Fr.
Rochebrune participated in an expedition to this part of West Africa (now Senegal and the Gambia) in 1875-1877. His father had been a founding member of the Société Linnéenne de Bordeaux and at least the ornithological part of this work was published simultaneously as an offset (as here) or in their “Actes” in which cases the pagination was part of that of the journal. Five parts were published 1883-1885 including those on Mammifères and Amphibiens, here lacking. A supplementary fascicle on Mammifères was issued in 1887.
This is a rare and important work based on difficult field research and one of very few such works done by the French. The species accounts are usually quite brief and concerned solely with the abundance and distribution within the prescribed area. None-the-less, this must have required an enormous amount of work and scholarship on the part of its single author.
The plates by Terrier are adequate but not exceptional. They remind me of those done by Arnoul for Les Oiseaux de la Chine.
Anker, 426; BM(NH), p. 1715; Trinity, p. 241 (under Tremeau). Absent from Wood, Yale, Zimmer.
(Rochefort, Charles César, Compte de [1605-])
The / History / of the / Caribby-Islands / viz. / Barbados, St Christophers, St Vincents, / Martenico, Dominico, Barbouthos, Mon- / serrat, Mevis, Antego, &c. in all XXVIII / in two books / The First containing the Natural; The / Second, the Moral History of those / Islands./ Illustrated with several Pieces of Sculpture, representing / the most considerable Rarities therein described / with a / Caribbian –Vocabulary / Rendred (sic) into English / by John Davies of Kidwelly. / London, / Printed by J. M. for Thomas Dring and John Starkey / and are to be sold at their Shops…/ 1666 20 27.5 x 17.5 cm. πA-Aaa4χ[$1, 2 signed]; 190 ll. Pp. (10)1-351[352](18). Full contemporary calf with blindstamp frame and peripheral decorations. Spine with five raised ridges. Edges speckled red. London, 1666.
π, (binder’s blank); A1r, title; A1v, licensure; A2r-A2v, dedication; A3r-A4v, preface; 1, the first book; 157, the second book; Zz1r-Aaa1v, a Caribbian vocabulary; Aaa2r-Aaa4r, a table of chapters; c, (binder’s) blank. Birds, chapter 15 of book 1, pp. 85-97. Contains nine unnumbered engraved plates including one of birds.
This work is certainly amongst the earliest on the natural history of the Caribbean. The original edition was written by Rochefort in French and published in Amsterdam in 1658. There were several subsequent editions in French including a second in 1665. This English translation by Davies is, I believe, the only English version although the title page for it seems to vary if one is to believe the Yale catalogue. They claim to have two copies issued in 1666 which differ in the designation of the printers. While one of their copies is identical to this one with respect to printer designation, both their copies apparently contain the neologism “Englished” instead of “Rendered into English”. Coues is the only other ornithological bibliography to site the English translation. His description was obtained by hearsay, however, and while the title was similar to this one, the copy was said to contain only four instead of nine plates. Clearly, this translation is uncommon.
The first book on natural history contains 28 chapters and is remarkably complete in covering flora and fauna. The chapter on birds and the accompanying plate are extremely interesting. There was a species called the “Eagle of Orinoca” which was said to come occasionally from South America and to prey entirely on Macaws. The picture and description of this bird strongly suggest that Harpy Eagle occurred on Caribbean islands at one time.
It is interesting that the name Rochefort does not appear in this translation, although it is acknowledged as a translation from an original French version. Whereas the dedicatory epistle in this work is signed by Davies, in the French original it is signed, according to the Yale catalogue, by Louis de Poincy (L. D. P.) to whom the work is, therefore, allegedly occasionally attributed. I have only found it listed under Rochefort.
BM(NH), p. 1715 (original French only); Cat. Zool. Soc.(1902), p. 558(original French only); Coues, Second Instalment, p. 241 (both this volume and original French); Wood, p. 540(a 1716 French version); Yale, p. 244, (both this volume and original French). Entirely absent from Trinity and Zimmer.
John Abbot’s / birds of / Georgia //Selected drawings / from the Houghton Library / Harvard University 30.9 x 26.5 cm. Pp. [i-vi]vii-xlii. 26 Unpaginated leaves including section heading , “John Abbot’s birds of Georgia” and 25 leaves with full-page half-tone color plate on recto and its appropriate text on verso of preceding page. Two unpaginated leaves comprising “John Abbot’s ornithological water colors”, an attempt to trace all his ornithological water colors, and a single terminal leaf with acknowledgements on recto and with verso blank. Original publisher’s maroon cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Yellow endpapers. A Beehive Press Book, Library of Georgia, Savannah, 1997. Presented in publisher’s beige, cloth-covered slipcase.
i, Half-title; ii, frontispiece uncolored half-tone self portrait of Abbot; iii, title; iv, copyright 1997, the Beehive Press; ISBN 0-88322-040-7; v, contents; vii, introduction; xxiv-xlii, notes ; remaining 29 unpaginated leaves as described above.
John Abbot (1751- ca.1840), an Englishman who settled in Georgia, was a highly important figure in the early exploration of North American natural history. He was primarily an entomologist with a very strong secondary interest in ornithology. He made little effort to publish his work but made a living primarily by selling prepared specimens and paintings of them. He was best known for his illustrations in Abbot and Smith’s The natural History of the rarer Lepidopterous insects of Georgia, but his art work was well known and eagerly sought by highly regarded British naturalists such as Dru Drury and William Swainson. His ornithological paintings resemble closely in style those of George Edwards.
OCLC locates 135 copies.
Bibliographie / ornithologique / française / Travaux publiés en langue française et en latin / en France et dans les Colonies Françaises / de 1473 à 1944. Two volumes 25.4 x 16.5 cm. Bound as one in half brown buckram and marbled boards by Starr Bookworks. Gilt black paper labeling piece on spine. Uncut. Original printed henna wrappers retained. Paris, Paul Lechevalier 1948 (? Vide infra), 1949.
Tome I / Bibliographie 1948 (but printer designates 29 Avril, 1949). [1]82-338344[$1 signed]; 268 ll. Pp. [1-4]5-534[535](1). 1, Half-title: Encyclopédie / ornithologique / VIII; 2, list of volumes in Encyclopédie ornithologique; 3, title; 4, abréviations; 5, préface by Michel Legendre, French ornithologist; 9, avant-propos; 10, publisher's note explaining that the work is divided into two volumes; 11-495(1), alphabetical listings 1-3202; 497, supplément, listings 3203-3544; 534, errata; 535, printer designation: Lionel Moulin, imprimeur, final date of printing specified as 29, Avril, 1949. Contains uncolored frontispiece from Brisson's Ornithologie printed in collotype or photogravure.
Tome II / Abréviations des titres des publications périodiques / cités dans la Bibliographie Ornithologique Française et / index méthodiques et systématiques 1949 [1]82-5866; 46 ll. Pp. [1-3]4-89[90](2, publisher's advertisements). 1, Half-title: Encyclopédie / ornithologique / IX; 2, list of volumes in Enclopédie ornithologique; 3, title; 4, list of cross indexes, publisher's note; 5, abréviations des titres des publications périodiques; 13, organisation de l'oiseaux; 23, distribution géographique; 37, monographies; 75, enseignement et histoire de l'ornithologie; 83, ornithologique apploquée; 87, varia; 90, printer designation with same date as first volume.
This is the only bibliography based on language and lists many publications not found elsewhere. The number of the listing designates an author or authors and there may be numerous entries under that number. Thus, the title page of volume I claims that 3,496 authors and 11,607 publications are cited. The information usually includes, title, publisher, date and place of publication, an indication of size, pagination and the number of colored and uncolored plates. Some preliminaries are identified and often the number parts and their dates are specified. This work, and a later complementary volume by Ronsil, L'Art français dans le livre d'oiseau (1957), are absolutely indispensable if one is interested in old French ornithological books.
Listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale.
Ronsil, René (fl. second half of 20th century)
L'art Français dans / le livre d'oiseaux / (Eléments d'une iconographie ornithologique française) 26.3 x 18.0 cm. π2[1]82-8894[$1 signed]; 70 ll. Pp. (4)[1]2-136. Later half brown buckram and marbled boards (to match binding of Ronsil's Bibliographie) by Starr Bookworks. Gilt black labeling piece on spine. Original printed cream card wrappers with uncolored vignettes included. Paris, Société Ornithologique De France et De L'Union Française, 1957. Plates all designated "Mémoires Du Muséum. Série A. Tome XV"
π1r, half-title; π1v, blank; π2r, title; π2v, blank; 1, préface; 5, avant-propos; 7, les premieres (sic) figures d'oiseaux; 17, figures gravees (sic) sur metal; 23, Buffon et les planches enluminees(sic)…33, "l'imprssion" en couleurs; 49, l'iconographie et les grands voyages; 59, la lithographie; 73, gravure sur bois au xixe siecle (sic); 81, J.-J Audubon; 85, la chromolithographie, chromotypographie, photochromie; 91, l'iconographie dans les periodiques; 95, indes des titres; 105, liste des editions de Buffon; 107, sommaire sur les techniques de reproduction; 111, index des noms d'auteurs; 133, table des matières;135, table des illustrations; 136; printer designation: Pierre André, Imp. Contains plates I-XX, four in color half-tone designated "P. André photosc.", 16 uncolored in collotype or photogravure designated at lower left "A. Barry, imp." and at lower right "Cl. B. N." Plates all printed on one side only and not included in pagination. Also contains two uncolored head- and two tail-pieces in the text.
Ronsil was an opera singer with a great interest in ornithology and ornithological books. He was a close friend of Robert Etchécopar and was alleged to me by the latter to have rushed into Delacour's burning house at Clères to rescue books from its famed ornithological library.
The present work is a unique kind of bibliography on several accounts. It is organized around temporal and technical themes and does not provide collations or detailed accounts of specific books. However, it cites just about every illustrated ornithological book written in French and analyzes the illustrations from both an artistic and a technical point of view. There is a large amount of material here that one cannot find elsewhere. Ronsil is very careful in his analyses of graphic material and always identifies the method of reproduction and the individual craftspeople involved. This book was intended to complement Ronsil's Bibliographie Ornithologique Française (1948-1949) which provided standard bibliographical information.
Listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard. Not listed at Trinity, Yale.
Rookmaaker, L. C., Mundy, P.(eter) J., Glenn, I.(an) E., Spary, E.(mma) C. (translator, Webb, F.(leur) M.)
François Levaillant / and the / birds of Africa 30.4 x 24.1 cm Pp. [i-v]vi-xxi[xxii]1-484. Original publisher’s ochre cloth with gilt lettering to spine. TEG. Ecru antique-style endpaper maps. Color pictorial dust jacket. Johannesburg, The Brenthurst Press, Third Series, No. 5, 2004. Standard edition.
1, Half-title with colored vignette; ii, colored frontispiece; iii, title; iv, edition limitation: total of 1070 copies of which 150 de luxe and 850 standard; ISBN 0-909079-59-5; v, contents; vi, list of illustrations(1-1-252), colored vignette on xv); xvi, foreword by Mary Slack (daughter of Harry F. Oppenheimer); xvii, preface with editorial note, acknowledgements; PART ONE: 1, Levaillant in perspective; 19, Levaillant’s formative years; 41, the African journeys; 91, merchant-naturalist and man of letters; 127, production of bird books; 143, Levaillant’s cabinet; PART TWO: 163, introduction; 173, the paintings; 451, appendix 1, 1796 valuation of Levaillant’s cabinet; 455, appendix 2, Levaillant’s legacy in current ornithological nomenclature; 457, select bibliography (approximately 550 references); 472, index; 483, authors’ biographies; 484, “the making of this book” with numerous credits including reproduction by K & F Colour and Disc Express, both of Johannesburg and printing by CTP Book Printers of Cape Town. Contains “plates” 1-252 including folding colored reproduction of map of Levaillant’s voyages in rear pocket, 58 full-page color half-tone reproductions on glossy paper of original paintings (not included in pagination), 50 printed on one side only, eight printed on both sides of four sheets. Others are mostly text illustrations save for unnumbered colored frontispiece, two colored text vignettes. Many of the half-tone text illustrations on mat paper are colored.
The Brenthurst Press is a publishing arm of the Oppenheimer diamond empire. Harry Oppenheimer possessed a very fine library and in 1998 bought a copy of the first two volumes of Levaillant’s Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d’Afrique that contained, bound in, 58 of the original paintings by Johann Lebrecht Renold that were used for the engravings. These paintings were numbered 1-11, 14-48 and 61-72. The paintings stimulated Oppenheimer to commission an academic team to combine a biography of Levaillant with a presentation of the 58 original paintings reproduced by modern technology. For each species depicted, Levaillant’s original text is given as well as a modern commentary.
Levaillant certainly merits such a work. According to the authors, his treatise on African ornithology lists 284 species of which 143 are from southern Africa; 71 are admitted by Levaillant to be from elsewhere; 50 are incorrectly claimed to have come from Africa; 10 are fabricated; and 10 are unrecognizeable. The presence of birds not found in Africa in Levaillant’s treatise has always somewhat tarnished his reputation yet his work has always been amongst the most desirable of ornithological treatises.
This book is of exceptional quality with regard both to its scholarship and its production. The present example is one of 850 “standard” copies.
Roosevelt, Theodore (1858-1919)
Revealing and Concealing Coloration in Birds and Mammals 24.5 x 16.2 cm. Pp. [119]120-231[232]. Linen-backed gray boards, original gray printed wrappers bound in. Author's Edition extracted from the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XXX, Art. VIII. New York, August 23, 1911.
119, Contents; 120, introduction; doctrine of concealing coloration.. by G. H. and Abbot Thayer; 123, misstatements of fact.. by them; 132, role of countershading; 134, concealment due mainly to cover and habits; 208, recapitulation; 212, conclusions; 221, appendix. Contains discard stamp of the Field Museum Library on first page.
In 1909, Gerald H. and Abbot Thayer published a work, "Concealing Coloration in the Animal Kingdom…" that posited the usefulness for concealment of color in birds and animals, often through countershading. Abbot Thayer was an artist who had considerable influence on Louis Agassiz Fuertes, the great American ornithological artist of the early 20th century. Former president Roosevelt disliked the generality of this notion and criticized it in an appendix to his book "African Game Trails". Abbot Thayer responded to this criticism, terming it a "tyrade" in the July, 1911 issue of "Popular Science Monthly" and the appendix of the present work is a specific rebuttal to Thayer's article. The main body of the work is an educated and well written diatribe against the book by the Thayers. Roosevelt exhibits considerable knowledge of American and African birds and animals. Of special interest to me is his discussion of woodpeckers on page 160 wherein he seems to say that he had seen the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the wild.
Roosevelt's father was one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History which helps explain how the ex-president could have this article published in its organ without the usual academic credentials. In addition to his general interest in wilderness travel, Roosevelt had a specific interest in ornithology and, as a boy in 1877, published with H. D. Minot, a four page catalog, "The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks in Franklin County, N. Y." reporting 97 species. This is one of the rarest ephemeral items of American ornithology and was reprinted in the 1920s. According to the Yale catalog (p. 245), Roosevelt also contributed a list of the birds of Washington D. C.
Wood (page 542) describes an author's extract identical to the present copy and characterizes it as "A contribution to the controversial literature of this most discussed subject"
Roosevelt, Theodore JR(1858-1919), Minot, H.(enry) D.(avis)(1859-1890)
The / summer birds of the / Adirondacks / in Franklin Conty, N. Y, together with Roosevelt, Theodore, Notes on some of the / birds of Oyster Bay / Long Island 23.0 x 15.5 cm. Pp. (6)[1]2-4[5-8]. Original printed tan card wrappers with unmarked tan paper dust jacket (original ?). Facsimile, New York, privately printed (by Frank Walters), 1925.
First preliminary leaf, recto: blank; verso, limitation statement, 42/200 signed F. Walters; second preliminary leaf, recto, title; verso, blank; third preliminary leaf: recto, half-title for “Summer birds…..”; verso, blank; 1, text of “Summer birds…” comprising list of 97 species; 5, half-title for “Notes…”; 6, blank; 7, text comprising list of 17 species with annotations; 8, printed “FACSIMILE”. Contains uncolored photographic frontispiece of Theodore Roosevelt as a senior at Harvard.
Roosevelt and Minot were classmates at Harvard and shared an interest in ornithology. Minot published “The Landbirds and game-birds of New England, with descriptions of the birds, their nests and eggs, their habits and notes” in 1877 when he was only 17. He became a railroad executive and died at age 31 in a railroad accident.
The present work is a facsimile of two papers that Roosevelt issued in undated small print runs about 1877. The originals were issued separately and are extremely rare. The first list contains very minor annotations. The annotations are of more substance in the second paper. However, the two papers would not be of interest had Roosevelt not become President of the United States.
This facsimile is, itself, quite scarce as only 200 copies were printed by Walters, a prominent seller of ornithological books in New York between the two world wars.
This facsimile is listed by Wood (p. 542) and OCLC locates about 30 copies.
Root, Nina J., Johnson, Bryan R.(1956)
Proceedings of the / Zoological Society of London / index to the artists / 1848-1900 21.5 x 14.0 cm. Pp. [i-vii]viii-xxiii(1)(2)1-947(1). Publishers beige cloth with brick red lettering on upper cover and spine. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities (Vol. 598). New York and London, Garland Publishing Inc., 1986.
i, Half-title; series title; ii, frontispiece; iii, title; iv, copyright 1986; ISBN 0-8240-8721-6; printed on acid-free 250-year life paper; manufactured in the United States of America; v, dedication; vi, blank; vii, contents (193 artists including "unidentified"); xi, list of plates (in this book); xii, blank; xiii, preface; xiv blank; xv, acknowledgements; xvi, blank; xvii, introduction; xx, blank; xxi-xxiii(1), how to use this index; unpaginated leaf: recto, half-title; verso, blank;1, alphabetical list of artists with their plates arranged in chronological order; 719, subject index title leaf, the index with alphabetically listed English names and Latin names; 721, amphibians and reptiles; 736, birds; 760, fish; 768, fossils; 772, insects; 777, beetles; 787, butterflies and moths; 834, invertebrates; 870, shells; 926, mammals. Contains 18 unnumbered, uncolored half-tone plates, all save frontispiece printed on one side only and not included in pagination.
The period covered by this work was the "golden era" of natural history and no publications captured this excitement better than the Proceedings, and its larger format sibling, the Transactions of the Zoological Society. The pictures in these journals were a reflection of this extraordinary era of zoological discovery. Almost 200 artists contributed these pictures to the Proceedings and this index organizes the artists and their subjects and provides much additional bibliographic information. There is a section for each artist with his/her plates listed in chronological order. For each picture, the following information is given: year and plate number; subject with scientific and occasionally English name; type of printing (e.g. "hand-colored lithograph"), lithographer and printer; author of article in which plate appeared; title of article; year and page numbers of article. The artists are listed alphabetically and there are also subject indexes that are keyed to the artist and year that the plate occurred. The book was made from "camera-ready copy" and is typographically unattractive.
The work was reviewed in the Archives of Natural History, Volume 15, Part 1, February 1988, page 98 where it was described as "..a monument to the patience and dedication of its compilers" with "..considerable value to the librarian, bibliographer and art historian." A companion volume on the Transactions was published the same year.
Nina J. Root was chairwoman of the Department of Library Services at the American Museum of Natural History.
Listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity and Yale.
Root, Nina J., Johnson, Bryan R. (1956)
Transactions of the / Zoological Society of London / an index to the artists / 1835-1936 21.5 x 14.0 cm. Pp. [i-vii]viii-xix(1)(2)1-444. Publisher's beige cloth, cardinal red lettering on upper cover and spine. Garland Reference Library of the Humanities (Vol. 697). New York & London, Garland Publishing Inc., 1986.
i, Half-title; series title; ii, frontispiece; iii, title; iv, copyright 1986; ISBN 0-8240-8548-5; printed on acid-free, 250-year life paper; manufactured in the United States of America; v, dedication; vi blank; vii, contents including 123 artists; x, blank; xi, list of plates (in this book); xii, blank; xiii, preface; xiv, blank; xv, acknowledgements; xvi, blank; xvii-xix(1), how to use this index; unpaginated leaf: recto, half-title; verso, blank; 1, artists arranged alphabetically with their plates arranged chronologically; 359, subject index title leaf, the indexes arranged alphabetically in English and then in Latin; 361, amphibians; 364, birds; 378, fish; 386, fossils; 391, insects; 393, beetles; 397, butterflies and moths; 411, invertebrates; 429, shells; 432, mammals. Contains nine unnumbered, uncolored half-tone plates, all, save frontispiece, printed on one side only and not included in pagination.
This book was formatted and printed in "camera ready copy" identically to that dealing with the artists in its sister publication, the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. The plates are listed in chronological order under each artist and for every plate the following information is given: plate number; subject name in Latin and sometimes English; type of plate (e.g., hand-colored lithograph), craftspeople (e. g. lithographer, printer); author of article in which plate appeared; title of article; exact citation including pagination of article. Subject indexes provide access to the information from a different perspective.
The work was reviewed rather unfavorably in the Archives of Natural History, Volume 15, part 1, February 1988, page 100. The reviewer found it difficult to identify an audience for the book and saw evidence for haste in its production.
Listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Yale but not by Trinity.
Rosenberg, C.(arl) B.(enjamin) H.(ermann)), von (1817-1888)
Reistochten / naar / de Geelvinkbaai / op / Nieuw-Guinea / in de jaren 1869 en 1870 27.6 x 23.0 cm. π121-194χ[$1 signed]; 89 ll. Pp. [i-xi]x-xxiv[1]2-153(1). Original printed gray boards backed and tipped with dark brown morocco. Gilt lettering on spine. Partly uncut, unopened. 'S Gravenhage, Martinius Nijhoff, 1875.
i, Half-title; ii, blank; iii, title; iv, blank; v, contents; vi, blank; vii, list of plates and maps; viii, blank; ix, foreword (history of exploration of the area, by Robidé van Der AA who, as R. A., seems to have edited this wok and supplied some bibliographical references); 1, text; 119, appendices A-E; 149, corrections and additions. Contains lithographed plates I-XVIII and color-printed engraved maps XIX-XXI, the last folding, all printed by P. W. M. Trap. Of the plates, 11 are printed in sepia (one ornithological), three are uncolored (one ornithological) and four (all ornithological, depicting seven species) are hand-colored. The colored birds were probably drawn by Hermann Schlegel.
This is a remarkable fundamental work on the anthropology and fauna of northern New Guinea and its adjacent islands. At the time of Rosenberg's explorations, this was terra incognita. Appendix B is a dictionary of common words in five local languages referenced to Dutch and provides s a first basic connection to the outside world. The area, its people and their ways became somewhat known during World War II but this remote part of Indonesia remains one of the more exotic parts of the world.
Rosenberg was a German who served in the Dutch administration of the Moluccas after joining the Dutch colonial army. In 1862 he was hired by Hermann Schlegel as a collector for the Leyden museum. The trip he describes in this book is summarized from an ornithological perspective by Stresemann in Ornithology from Aristotle to the Present, pp. 209-210. Some of the islands he visited were entirely unexplored. Chapter 18 of the book summarizes the bird life of New Guinea, virtually completely unknown at the time, and appendix C lists and describes 34 new species that were discovered on these expeditions including such interesting ones as Brehm's Parrot, the Numfor Paradise Kingfisher, and Ptilorhynchus inornatus, now known as Amblyornis inornatus (Vogelkop Bower Bird) which builds the most spectacular of all bowers, the bower discovered later by Beccari. The book is replete with interesting and basic ornithological and ethnological material. The colored figures of birds are accurate and probably done by Schlegel who published descriptions of the novel species in 1871-1872 (Nederlandisch Tijdschrift voor Dierkunde, 4de deel (Observations Zoologiques, Nos. 4 and 5). It was not unusual in the 19th century (or, I suppose, at any other time) that new species were announced in print by a museum scientist upon their receipt in order to be certain of obtaining priority in their nomenclature. Books describing such expeditions ordinarily appeared several years later.
Wood, p. 542. Listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Yale but not by Trinity, Zimmer.
Rothschild, (Lionel)Walter(1868-1937)
The / Avifauna of Laysan / and the / Neighboring Islands / with a complete history to date of the / Birds of the Hawiian Possessions 35.8 x 27.6 cm. [a]4b4c2d2(-d2)a24b22c22(-c22)B-H4I2(-I2)1-2434(-34)K-R4S-T2U-2T42U4(-2U4)[$1, 2 signed]; 189 ll. Pp. (2)[i]ii-xx[i]ii-xiv[1]2-58[(Di)1](Di)2-(Di)21(1)[59]60-320. Later mottled brown calf-backed marbled boards by j. Desmonts of James Macdonald Co. Spine with five raised bands, gilt lettering in second, fourth, sixth compartments. Cream endpapers. London, R. H. Porter, 1893 (Parts I and II), 1900(Part III).
a1r, Title; a1v, printed, engraved printer designation: Taylor and Francis; i contents; ii, dates of parts I-III; iii, preface; v, literature; xiii, origin and distribution of Hawaiian avifauna; xvii, list of plates numbered I-LXXXIII; i, the island of Laysan, introduction; vii, diary of Henry Palmer from May 5th to August 18th, 1891; 1, systematic list and account of birds (1-26) from Laysan and neighboring islands; (Di)1-(Di)21; resumé of Palmer's diary (Jan. 1, 1891-August, 1893); 59, history, list and accounts of birds (1-96) of the Hawaiian Islands; 299, list of introduced birds; 301, erroneously reported birds; 302, additions, supplements and corrections; 313, complete list of (116) birds known from the Hawaiian possessions; 315, lists of birds from various islands; 319, index. Contains plates I-LXXXIII, so numbered only in the list of plates and comprising: 55 hand-colored lithographs, 51 (of birds) drawn and lithographed by J. G. Keulemans and four (one of birds, three of nests and eggs) drawn and lithographed by F. W. Frohawk, all printed by Mintern Bros; eight uncolored (six) lithographs of scenes by Frohawk and Mintern Bros.: and 20 photographs by Williams Photo of Honolulu reproduced using collotype by Bedford Lemere, London. Also contains three uncolored, unnumbered text figures.
There was a time when the avifauna of Hawaii comprised more than 60 passerine species, every one of which was endemic. That time was long gone, even at the end of the 19th century when the avifaunal remnants, many of them soon to disappear entirely, were being tracked, studied and collected by Rothschild's collector, Henry Palmer, as well as by Scott B. Wilson, Robert C. L. Perkins, and Henry W. Henshaw. Perkins, reputedly the keenest of the lot, published his findings obscurely in David Sharpe's Fauna Hawaiiensis(1899-1913); Henshaw's equally inconspicuous work, Birds of the Hawiian Islands…was published (1902) in Honolulu; but the findings of Palmer and Wilson were sumptuously presented in this book and in Avifauna Hawiensis (1890-1899) respectively. Palmer collected 1832 specimens, of which, according to Rothschild, 15 were new. The accounts by Rothschild include synonymy; descriptions of all plumages; distribution; and what was known of the life history as gleaned mainly by the four field observers here mentioned.
Rothschild, founder of the Tring Museum, and a member of one of the world's wealthiest families, could afford the very best craftspeople to produce this magnificent and lavish book. Not only are the plates all for which one could hope, but even the thick, almost card-like paper is special.
Wood (p. 543) and Zimmer (p. 532) report that the edition consisted of 250 copies. Also listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale.
Rothschild, (Lionel) Walter (1868-1937), Pycraft, W.(alter)P.(lane)(1868-1952)
A Monograph of the Genus Casuarius / With a Dissertation on the Morphology and Phylogeny of the Palaeognathae / (Ratitae and Crypturi) and Neognathae (Carinatae). (From first page of article, p. 109) Offprint from Transactions / of / The Zoological Society / of London / Vol. XV.-Part 5. S-2Q42R22S2(-2S2); [$1, 2 signed]; 91 ll. Pp. 109-190. Later mottled brown calf-backed marbled boards by James Macdonald Co. Spine with five raised ridges, gilt lettering in second, fourth, sixth compartments. Uncut. Original printed blue wrappers included. London, for the Society, December, 1900.
109, Part I, a monograph…by Rothschild; 149, on the morphology…by Pycraft; 151, pterylosis; 171, osteology; 238, myology; 247, nervous system; 248, alimentary canal; 252, respiratory system; 256, circulatory system; 257, urogenital system; 259, development and phylogeny; 266, summary; 267, generic and specific keys; 279, bibliography; 283, explanation of plates. Contains uncolored text figures 1-9, plates XXII-XLV including 18 hand-colored lithographs drawn and lithographed by J. G. Keulemans, printed by Mintern Bros.; two lithographed, partially hand-colored maps by Stanford's Geographical Establishment; and four uncolored photogravure or collotype plates after H. Grönvold by Bale & Danielsson, Ltd.
Wrappers: upper recto, complete title page for journal including date but without title of article; verso, available volumes with prices; lower recto, available volumes and parts (continued) with prices including this article, £3 10s (to public); verso, contents of this part including title of article; note concerning Society publications.
The Transactions of the Zoological Sociey published a number of important and well illustrated ornithological monographs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and this is one. The monograph by Rothschild, the founder of the Tring Museum, describes what he considers to be eight species divided into 20 species and subspecies. After beginning with a specific key to the various forms, he provides for each , a bibliography/synonymy; a local name; a description with measurements; distribution; and various pertinent quotations from those with experience in the field or aviary. Pycraft's article is an erudite treatment of the anatomy of cassowaries, emus, rheas, kiwis and ostriches. The illustrations and the overall production of the work are outstanding.
Wood, p. 543. Also listed as a separate by Cornell, Harvard, Trinity but not by AMNH, Yale, Zimmer although these institutions do contain complete sets of the Transactions.
Roux, (Jean Louis Florent) Polydore (1792-1833)
Ornithologie / Provençale, / ou / Description avec Figures Coloriées / De tous les Oiseaux qui habitent constamment la Provençe / ou qui n’y sont que de passage; / Suivie / D’un Abrégé des Chasses, de quelques instructions de / Taxidermie et d’une Table des Noms vulgaires 27.0 x 21.5 cm. Two volumes bound as two (although not distributed as originally designated). Comtemporary red half-morocco, marbled boards and endpapers, gilt spine with five raised ridges. TEG. The Bradley Martin copy.
Volume I (labeled Texte on spine) π4143-741-484492X212222-624$1 signed]; 246 ll. Pp. [I-V]VI-VIII[IX]X-LV[LVI]1-386[387]388[12-52]62-482. Marseille, chez l’auteur, 1825.
Contains 17 (I-XVII) hand-colored lithographic plates of nests, 32 (A-V, X-Y, 8, Aa-Ag) of eggs. I, half-title; III, title; V, avant-propos; IX, introduction; XLVII, explication (of terms); LIII, explication (of plate 1, skeleton of a crossbill); 1, species accounts; 377, supplément; 382, annotations; 387, table méthodique (index); 12, half-title (of Tome Seconde); 32, title page for Tome Seconde Paris and Marseille, 1830, Typographie de Feissat Ainé et Demonchy, imprimeurs; 52-482 species accounts ending in mid sentence of that concerned with the Faisan Vulgaire.
Volume II (labeled Atlas on spine) One preliminary leaf, the title on recto including the designation “Atlas / du Tome Premier” and the “Avis au Reliure” on the verso. Contains 388 hand-colored lithographic plates of birds numbered, often by manuscript, 1-5, 5 bis, 6-25, 27-53, 53 bis, 54-62, 64-72, 74, 74 bis, 75-78, 78 bis, 79-82, 82 bis, 83-104, 104 bis, 104 ter, 105-112, 112 bis, 112-114, 114 bis, 115-120, 120 bis, 121-123, 123 bis, 124, 124 bis, 125-177, 177 bis. 178-211, 211 bis, 212-227, 227 bis, 228-237, 239-241, 243-263, 263 bis, 264-298, 300-363, 365-379. Plate 1 depicts the skeleton of a crossbill and is often listed as uncolored by bibliographers although it has some brown. All the plates have the figures colored and the minimal backgrounds uncolored. All were lithographed and printed by Beisson of Marseille after drawings by Roux. Inserted amongst the plates in this copy are seven blank leaves of contemporary paper corresponding to plates 26, 63, 73, 238, 242, 299 and 364 all of which are lacking here but listed by Ronsil. Ronsil lists three other plates, 337 bis, 337 ter and 380 that are lacking in this copy and are not represented by blank leaves.
This exceedingly important and rare book represented an early major contribution to the ornithology of France and its iconography. The text of the work was not completed because Roux died prematurely of the plague in India. The species accounts for many of the non passerines were destined for the truncated “Tome Seconde” and were not done. The text is, however, exhaustive and definitive for the approximately 260 species that are covered including all Passerines, raptors, cuckoos, woodpeckers, doves and gallinaceous birds. The illustrations are virtually complete and depict even those species whose written accounts remained unfinished. This was by far the largest collection of illustrations of French ornithology to have appeared at the time of its publication and it shared with two works by Vieillot, the distinction of providing the first comprehensive coverage of French birds.
According to Ronsil in his l’Art Français (p. 66), Roux was an artist who exhibited in Paris yet his plates were considered by Temminck to be poorly colored and rather ordinary, and some of them were copied from the Planches Enluminées . Roux, himself, seems to be apologetic about their quality when he tells us on the last page of the avant-propos that various embellishments were omitted from them with the objective of making the work cheaper and available to a larger public. Such criticism notwithstanding, this was an unusually comprehensive iconography depicting several species for the first time and employing the relatively recent technique of lithography for reproduction.
How many plates constitutes a complete copy? Englemann says that the work appeared in 56 livraisons each containing eight plates so the figure 448 may represent the ideal number. Ronsil claims there were 451 plates but one arrives at 447 from the list he presents. Anker also cites the number 451 but 443 is the number one derives from his list. He is missing five enumerated by Ronsil, but claims there are 33 egg plates, perhaps not having noticed that “W” is not present. Trinity and Wood list respectively “about 430” and 425 plates and the Yale copy is incomplete. The work is absent from the Ayer collection.
Anker, 431; Bradley Martin, 181(this copy); Engelmann, p. 414; Ronsil, 2654; Ronsil. l’Art Français, p. 66; Trinity, p. 204; Wood, p. 543; Yale, p. 246. Unlisted by Zimmer.
Ornithological Miscellany Three volumes. 33 x 27 cm. Contemporary half-red morocco, spine in six compartments with gilt lettering and decorative devices. TEG. London, Trübner and Co., Bernard Quaritch and R. H. Porter. Private library stamp partially removed from front endpapers.
Vol. I. (1875)1876. π10 B-E4F2 (-F2)G-S4T2U-2E42F22G-2R4 (c)2S-2U4[$1,2 signed]; 172 ll. Pp. (6, title, dedication, preface)[i-iii]iv[v]vi[vii-xiv][1-3]4-298(2, explanation of maps)299-321[322]. [i], dates of publication of vol. I.; [iii], names of contributors; [v], list of illustrations;[vii], errata; [ix], errata; xi, notice to binder; [xiv], woodcut with explanatory text; 1-298, text; 299-321, index. Contains three partially colored maps and a total of 41 plates. Of these plates, 28 are hand-colored lithographs by Hanhart, Mintern Bros and Walter after drawings by Keulemans. In the case of plates printed by Hanhart, Keulemans is specifically identified as his own lithographer. Six plates are uncolored wood engravings and seven, including the frontispiece, “Rebus of Rowley”, a deer probably drawn by Rowley, are tinted or chromolithographs. Of these latter seven, four are signed by Keulemans and a fifth is almost certainly by him so in this volume he is probably responsible for 33 of the 35 colored plates. Bound into this volume are the upper wrappers for its constituent parts, I-IV. These are dated from January 1875 to May, 1876 and a list of illustrations is included within each. In addition, there is a title page for part I that differs from that for the entire volume shown above in containing the year 1875 and the publisher Thomas Page of Brighton. Quaritch and R. H. Porter do not appear on this page although Trübner does.
Vol. II. (1876)1877. π4B-P4 Q2 R-2D4 2E2 2F-2G4 2H2 2I-2X4 2Y4(-2Y4)2Z-3M43N2 3O-3R43S2 [$1, 2 signed]; 245 ll. Pp. (2, title)[i-iii]iv[v]vi[vii-xii][1]2-477[478]. [i], dates of publication; [iii], names of contributors; [v], list of illustrations; [vii], errata; [ix], errata; [xi], designatory leaf for part V; 1-442, text; 443-477, index. Contains a total of 57 plates. Of these, 36 are hand-colored lithographs including 24 after Keulemans, nine undesignated but probably after N. Prjevalsky, the author of the relevant articles, two after Joseph Smit and one after Edgar Allen. The latter is the nest and eggs of White’s thrush and only the eggs are colored. There are also nine tinted or chromolithographs including a folding plate and another that is double-page, as well as the frontispiece of a deer which is a companion to the other two frontispieces and was probably drawn by Rowley. Among these nine plates, seven are specifically attributed to Keulemans and another was almost certainly drawn by him so he is likely responsible for 32 of the 45 colored plates. Finally, the remaining 12 plates are uncolored and comprise 9 wood engravings and three lithographs. Bound in at the rear of the volume are the upper and lower wrappers for the constituent parts V-X published October, 1875-October, 1876. The lower covers contain advertisements for Hume’s Stray Feathers. Included within each set of wrappers is the list of plates for the part in question and, in the case of part X, an “N. B.” from the editor (Rowley).
Vol. III. (1877)1878. π4B-G4 H4(-H4)I2 (-I2)K-P4 Q4 (-Q4)R-X4 Y-2B2 2C-2N4 2O2 (-2O2)2P-2Q42R2[W$1,2 signed]; 142 ll. Pp. (2, title)[i-iii]iv[v]vi[1-5]6-276. [i], dates of publication; [iii], names of contributors; [v],list of illustrations; [1], errata; [3], designatory leaf for part 11; [5]6-255, text; 257-276, index. Contains a total of 37 plates. Of these, 17 are hand-colored lithographs including six after Keulemans, 10 after Smit, and one, double-paged of the egg of an elephant bird, after Erxleben. There are also 11 tinted or chromolithographs including the frontispiece probably after Rowley, seven after Keulemans and three after Smit. In this volume, Keulemans is thus responsible for 13 colored plates and Smit 13 as well. Finally, the remaining nine plates are uncolored and include two lithographs of eggs and seven engravings. Bound in at the rear of the volume are the upper wrappers for the constituent parts XI-XIV published November, 1877-May, 1878. With each wrapper is a list of plates for the specific part as distinguished from the list of plates for the volume as a whole.
This wonderful publication was a short term periodical comprising 14 issues over three years that ended with Rowley’s death in 1878. It contains a potpourri of interesting and significant articles that examine an interest in birds from all sorts of perspectives. Most of it was written by Rowley himself including articles on such diverse subjects as birds of the Fiji Islands, the derivation of the word “isabelline”, extinct birds of the Mascarene Islands such as the dodo and Gallinula (Leguatia) Gigantea and gigantic birds of Madagascar and New Zealand. There are also many scholarly contributions from distinguished ornithologists such as R. B. Sharpe’s articles on the honey guides and the genus Artamus. Probably the most important work is a series of articles on the birds of Mongolia by the great Russian explorer, N. Prjevalsky, after whom a wild horse is named. 289 Species are covered in this lengthy report which is embellished by nine excellent hand-colored lithographs probably after drawings by the author.
The illustrations in this work are of special interest. There are 135 plates of which 81 are hand-colored lithographs, 27 are tinted or chromolithographs and 27 are uncolored engravings or lithographs. Keulemans is identified as artist for 58 of the hand-colored lithographs and 18 of the chromolithographs i. e. for 76 of the colored plates and I am quite certain that he did another two of the chromolithographs. Some of the parrots he did for this work are his best of this family and his barn owl here is among the finest of all his bird portraits. Several of the chromolithographs depict English scenery and reveal Keulemans’ artistic talent quite removed from the realm of pure draughtsmanship. One of the others, “Mother Carey’s Chickens” shows a witch riding a broom over the ocean amongst a flock of petrels. His contribution to Rowley’s opus was the most varied he was ever called upon to submit and, for this reason, perhaps the most interesting.
The collation and description of plates for this work is complicated by Rowley’s impenetrable system for his list of illustrations and by varying interpretations of the term “colored” as it applies to an illustration. My collation agrees precisely with that of Anker.
Anker, 432; Trinity, p. 204; Wood, p. 543; Yale, p. 246; Zimmer, p. 553.
Rowley, Ian (1926), Russell, Eleanor and Marsack, Peter (illustrator)
Fairy-wrens and / grasswrens / Maluridae 24.5 x 18.6 cm. Pp. [i-ix]x-xii1-274. Original publisher’s blue-black cloth, gilt lettering to spine. Off-white endpapers. Color pictorial dust jacket with red and blue lettering to upper cover and spine. Oxford, New York, Tokyo, Oxford University Press, 1997.
i, Description of “Bird Families of the World” and biographies of the authors of the present book which is the fourth in the series; ii, list of the first five volumes of the series; iii, title; iv, copyrights; ISBN 0-19-854690-4; printed in Hong Kong; v, preface; vi, blank; vii, acknowledgements; viii, dedication; ix, contents; xi, blank; xiii, list of colour plates; xv, abbreviations; xvii, plan of the book; xxi, topography of a fairy-wren; xxii, map of Australia and New Guinea; 1, Part I, general chapters; 3, introduction to the Malurids; 7, taxonomy; 14, environment and evolution; 32, morphology, feeding behavior; 55, social organization and vocal communication; 85, co-operative breeding; 104, life histories; 133, conservation; 141, Part II, species accounts, title; 143, species accounts comprising five genera, 25 species and various subspecies;246, glossary; 249, bibliography (approximately 500 references); 267, index. Contains identification-type color half-tone plates 1-8 which are printed on recto with facing explanatory text on the verso of the antecedent plate. An unnumbered color plate comprises six photographs of various typical habitats. The work also contains about 22 uncolored text illustrations, mostly sketches and numerous maps and graphs and tables, all numbered with respect to the chapter in which they occur.
This work is the fourth in the Oxford University Press Series “Bird Families of the World”. The series comprised 17 taxonomic monographs, the last of which was published in 2006.
OCLC locates more than 200 copies.
Royal Magazine, the
The / Royal Magazine / for December, 1765 20.8 x 13.3 cm. Laid paper. 80. Catch words. Oo-Uu4χ(blank)[$1, 2 signed]; 29 ll. Pp. [281]282-322(4, index)323-332(2, blank). Unbound extract of entire monthly issue. (London), 1765.
282, title and beginning of text; after 322 two leaf unpaginated index and directions to binders for placing of “cuts” for entire volume; 323-332, more articles. Contains a hand-colored plate of “The American Water Rail” designated “Engraved for the Royal Mag.” and included as a “cut” in the directions to the binder. It appears to be an engraving on metal. Also contains a page of music and a wood-cut head piece
Page 289 contains a paragraph “A compendium of the most curious and useful parts of natural history” continued from a previous issue. This paragraph provides a careful description of “the American Water-Rail” and the plate is bound so that its image faces the description. The plate seems to be copied from one by Edwards.
There is no indication in this issue of the publisher or printer. The issue may be from “The Royal Magazine or Gentleman’s monthly companion” printed for J. Coote and published in 21 volumes, 1759-1771. The general appearance is very similar to the “Gentleman’s Magazine” of the same era.
Rudbeck, Olof (1660-1740)(Löwendahl, Björn, editor)
Olof Rudbeck's / Book / of / Birds / A Facsimile of the Original Watercolors / [c. 1693-1710] / of Olof Rudbeck the Younger in the Leufsta Collection / in Uppsala University Library Two volumes. 44.0 x 28.5 cm. Original blue cloth, gilt lettering on spine, marbled endpapers in matching blue cloth slipcase with gilt decoration. English version, #500 of 500 copies. Stockholm, Björck & Börjesson, 1986.
Volume One. Text (on spine). Introductory Essays Pp. [1-10]11-99[100-110]; 55 ll. 1, Half-title; 2, blank; 3, title; 4, copyright; 5, contents; 6, contributors; 7, foreword by Thomas Tottie; 8, blank; 9, preface by Löwendahl; 10, portrait of Rudbeck; 11, editor's introduction; 21, Olof Rudbeck the Younger and his time by Bunnar Groberg containing uncolored text figures 1-15; 49, Olof Rudbeck and the pictorial tradition in natural history by Allan Ellenius containing text figures 1-28; 69, Rudbeck's birds: an annotated catalogue by Gunnar Brusewitz containing text figures 1-9; 97, index of species; 101, the portfolio, 35 reduced black-and-white reproductions; 109, blank; 110, colophon and limitaion statement.
(Volume Two) Plates (on spine). Two preliminary leaves containing half-title, title and copyright and 165 unnumbered leaves containing 166 facsimile colored plates, the last leaf being printed on both sides.
Rudbeck, a professor at the University of Uppsala, was the patron and mentor of Linnaeus who spent almost two years living at his house and tutoring his son. During that residence, Linnaeus took copious notes and compiled a manuscript on Rudbeck's pictures of birds and insects. He used this manuscript when he wrote Fauna Suecica and, more importantly, the ornithological section of Systema Naturae. Thus, some of Rudbeck's pictures may be regarded as "type specimens".
Rudbeck's father was also a professor at Uppsala and something of a botanist and botanical artist and was presumably a major inspiration to his son. The most important of Rudbeck the Younger's pictures of birds are found in his "Portfolio" and his "Book of Birds" which contain respectively 35 and 166 large format ornithological paintings. After Rudbeck's death, most of his paintings were obtained by a wealthy family where they were examined by various important Swedish figures of Ornithology and Natural History including Sparrman and the Wright brothers. Of the 69 plates in Sparrman's Svensk Ornithologie, 23 are copied, without attribution, from Rudbeck. The portrait of a Jackdaw in Svenska Faglar by the Wright brothers is almost identical to that by Rudberg.
Rudbeck used these pictures as the basis of his lectures and the text volume of the present work contains transcriptions of notes relevant to the various species that were taken during these lectures.
Rudbeck's pictures are of specimens, often apparently freshly killed. While usually very accurate in terms of color and anatomical characteristics, they do not convey a feeling of life. It is unlikely that he did all of them himself as he employed several artists amongst whom the most highly regarded was Andreas Holtzbom.
The color printing of the present work was done by the firm of Roberto Capelli of Milan. The work was also issued in Swedish and German but the text was apparently expanded for the English version. This facsimile reproduces not only the pictures and accompanying notes, but also the paper defects including foxing and browning. The reproductions, which are very good, were done by Chromolito di Roberto Capelli of Milan.
The work is listed in the on-line catalogs of the American Museum of Natural History, Cornell, Harvard and Trintity.
Rüppell, Dr. Eduard (Wilhelm Peter Eduard Simon) (1794-1884)
Systematische Uebersicht / der / Vögel Nord-Ost-Afrika's / nebst / Abbildung und Beschreibung von fünfzig theils unbekannten, / theils noch nicht bildlich dargestellten Arten 24.8 x 16.8 cm. π41-8896[$1, 2 signed]; 74 ll. Pp. [I-V]VI-VII[VIII][1]2-140. Original printed blue boards with black lettering on spine, upper cover, the latter enclosed by decorative printing. Frankfurt A. M., In Commission der S. Schmerber'schen Buchhandlung, 1845. Finn Salomonsen copy with his bookplate.
I, Title; 2, blank; 3, dedication to Kittlitz; 4, blank; 5, foreword; 8, printing errors on plates and in text; 1, text. Contains hand-colored lithographic plates 1-50 drawn and lithographed by Joseph Wolf.
This highly important book is a continuation and synopsis of the ornithological sections from Rüppell's earlier Atlas zu der Reise im nördlichen Afrika…(1826-1828) and Neue Wirbelthiere zu der Fauna von Abyssinien gehörig..(1835-1840. Here, Rüppell lists systematically 532 species with a reference to the original literature, to a picture if one has been published, and a brief statement of status in northeast Africa. Fifty species are selected for careful description with measurements and discussion. These were chosen because they were new or had never previously been illustrated.
The work is particularly highly regarded, not only because of its importance as the first systematic treatment of a substantial number of birds from the area, but also because of the outstanding illustrations by Joseph Wolf (1820-1899). These were amongst Wolf's earliest published illustrations and were actually done when he was still in his teens. Anker (#435) remarks "The beautiful plates…were drawn by Joseph Wolf who by this work made his name known among ornithologists, and thus began his great career as a painter of bird figures for ornithological works." This is one of few works in which Wolf did his own lithography since, at this stage of his career, he was in no position to refuse what he later considered an onerous task. I suspect that he may also have done the coloring which includes metallic gold in two or three of the pictures.
Wood, p. 546; Zimmer, p. 536. Also listed by AMNH, Harvard, Yale, Trinity.
Aves / Do Brasil 35.0 x 26.6 cm. Pp. [1-17]18-335(1); 168 ll. Original publisher's white cloth with olive lettering on upper cover and spine, sienna outline of Rufous-bellied Thrush on upper cover. Mauve endpapers. TEG. Sao Paulo, Editora Rios, 1979.
1, Half-title; 2, blank; 3, half-title; 4, designation of translator, Alasdair G. Burman, and illutrators, Etienne and Yvonne Demonte; 5, title; 6, copyright and publication data; 7, dedication; 8, blank; 9, about the author; 10, blank; 11, preface; 13, contents; 14, list of plates; 15, index of families; 16, blank; 17, plate with letter-press on verso; 19, introduction; 27, Brazil and evolution of birds; 47, the annual cycle; 70, migration; 87, birds and their place in human life; 123, conservation; 135, distribution of birds in Brazil; 209, classification; 325, glossary; 327, bibliography. Contains colored figure on title page, 36 unnumbered colored tableaux of single species with comprehensive letter-press covering that species on verso. Also contains line drawing of bird topography and 88 line drawings depicting a representative of each family found in Brazil.
This is an attractive volume that touches on many aspects of Brazilian ornithology and also provides a systematic overview. It describes 22 orders, 85 families and 2650 species and subspecies. In the cases of the 36 species depicted on the colored plates and the representative species selected for a line sketch from each family the coverage is extensive including source of original nomenclature, description and measurements, distribution in western hemisphere and Brazil, characteristics, habitat, behavior, feeding, nesting and parenting. Only original nomenclature, measurements and distribution are given for the remaining species and subspecies. The systematic portion of the book is written in Portuguese whereas the remainder is presented in both Portuguese and English. The colored illustrations are very attractive and the principal artist, Etienne Demonte, has clearly been much influenced by Axel Amuchastegui.
This volume is subjectively complete and there is no indication that it is part of a series. However, Aves Do Brasil, II, Artificiais e Analiticas was issued by the same publishers in 1981.
Present in online catalogs of Cornell, Harvard, Trinity and Yale. Not listed by AMNH.
Ruschi, Augusto (1915-) (illustrated by Etienne Demonte [1931-] and Yvonne Demonte; translated by Alasdair G.(raham) Burman)
Aves / do Brasil / Voll. II. / chaves artificiais / analiticas 34.9 x 26.7 cm. Pp. [1-6]7-237(1). Publisher's white cloth wit gilt outline of rufous-bellied thrush on upper cover, gilt lettering on upper cover and flat spine. Ochre endpapers. TEG. Pictorial dust jacket. São Paulo, Editoria Rios, (1981).
1, Half-title; 2, designation of illustrators and translator; 3, title with colored figure of rufous-bellied thrush; 4, copyright 1981; publication data; credits; "fotolitos" produced by Quimgráfica Indústria e Comércia S/A; 5, dedication; 6, blank; 7, about the author (with uncolored photograph); 8, blank; 9, preface; 10, blank; 11, contents; 12, list of plates; 13, introduction; 21, systematic list of 23 orders, 82 families; 27, list of species to be added to those in first volume; 31, list of nomenclatural changes since first volume; 35, external morphological characteristics with descriptions of the various orders; 67, artificial and analytical keys; 221, index (to both volumes) referenced to specific names although explanatory note maintains that the first name listed is that of the genus. Contains colored plates 1-24 by Etienne Demonte printed in half-tone on recto only with facing sheet of letter-press. The plate number is printed on the recto of the sheet of letter-press. Plates and letter-press are included in pagination. Also contains two full text pages of anatomical line drawings and 82 line drawings of representatives of each family by Yvonne Demonte, these identical to those in the first volume save usually smaller and less well printed.
The author tells us that has added identification keys to this volume that were not present in the first volume of Aves do Brasil published two years previously. Moreover, the second edition of volume one of Peters' Check-list of the birds of world appeared in the interim, necessitating various additions and changes in nomenclature and classification. Twenty-four new colored plates were also commissioned for this volume. The text figures are the same as those used previously.
Much of the book is written in Portuguese with accompanying English translation. This does not apply to the keys, the only substantive new text. The book is cheaply bound with glue rather than sewn. The colored plates are very good, but in themselves do not justify publication of this superfluous volume. The plates were issued in a portfolio in 1991.
This volume not listed by AMNH, Cornell, Harvard, Trinity, Yale. Cornell and Trinity list the 1991 portfolio of plates.
Beija-Flores / do estado do Espirito Santo/ Hummingbirds / of the state of Espirito Santo 35.5 x 27.0 cm. Pp. [1-6]7-263[264]. In English and Portuguese. Original publisher’s white boards with silver lettering to spine and upper cover and hummingbird design on upper cover. Color pictorial dust jacket with same hummingbird design. TEG. Gray endpapers. Sao Paulo, Ed. Rias, 1982.
1, half-title; 2, brief biography of illustrator Etienne Demonte; translator’s note; 3, title, with colored photograph; 4, copyright; publication and production data printed on ochre page; 5, quotation from Ruschi and dedication to HRH, Prince Phillip; 6, blank; 7, about the author; 8, blank; 9, preface; 11, index (contents); 12, general index; 13, index to plates 1-29; 15, introduction; 21, physiographic characteristics of the state of Espírito Santo; 44, Bird life of Espírito Santo; 80, plan of the hummingbird; 83, classification and description of 41 species and subspecies including identification key for hummingbirds in the state; 259, bibliography (91 references).
Contains half-tone colored plates 1-29 printed on one side only of glossy leaves. Each plate is preceded by a glossy leaf containing the plate number on the recto and a small uncolored version of the plate indicating the name of the species and the sex and age of each figure, on the verso. All the glossy plates are included in pagination. In addition to the title page, there is a full-page colored photograph (page 77) and there is an uncolored topographical line sketch of a coquette by Ruschi.
This is a local monograph of hummingbirds, nicely illustrated by Etienne Demonte. For each species, Ruschi provides: vernacular and English names; geographical distribution, both local and general; length and other measurements; habitat; migration; description; and behaviour and biotypes for nesting, bathing, song, resting, courting and sleeping. There is also considerable information on the biology of hummingbirds and on the bird life of the state of Espirito Santo, and there are interesting historical observations. For example, on page 93, we learn that “J. M. Brisson, in 1760, was the first author to publish a monograph on hummingbirds”
OCLC finds about 40 copies.
Russ, Karl (Friedrich Otto)(1833-1899)
Die / fremdländischen Stubenvögel, / ihre / Naturgeschichte, Pflege und Zucht, / dritter Band / die Papageien (General title) Die Papageien, / irhre / Naturgeschichte, Pflege, Züchtung und Abrichtung (Volume title) 24.4 x 17.0 cm. [I]8II4III21-558566[$1, 2 signed]; 460 ll. Pp. [I-V]VI-XXVIII[1]2-891(1). Contemporary (publisher’s ?) half-maroon sheep with patterned boards. Spine flat in five ruled compartments, second and fourth with gilt lettering, others with gilt floral design. Reticulated edges. Magdeburg, Creutz’sche Buch- und Musikalien- Handlung (R. & M. Kretschmann), 1881.
I, Blank; II, general title; III, volume title; IV, printer designation: August Grimpe in Hannover; V, foreword dated late autumn, 1880; XIV, contents; XXIV, list of illustrations including plates XXI-XXX depicting species 101-139; XXVI, bibliography with almost 100 references; 1, general considerations; 42, long-tailed parrots; 378, short-tailed parrots; 642, cockatoos; 701, lories; 823, addenda; 862, corrections; 864, alphabetical generic index with names in Latin, German, English and French. Contains mounted chromolithographic plates XXI-XXX, about 16.1 x 10.3 cm, by Th. Fischer, Cassel after originals by Emil Schmidt.
The four-volume work is a magnum opus that covers the natural history and aviculture of more than 700 species of cage birds. The present volume amounts to a monograph on parrots of which over 300 species are divided into 28 genera. While the emphasis is on maintenance and propagation, the natural history, synonymy, description, measurements, distribution and nidification are also presented for each species. According to Anker (#436), this volume was published in 10 parts dated 1878-1880.
Wood, p. 545. Also listed by Cornell, Trinity, Yale but not by AMNH, Harvard, Zimmer
Russ, Karl Friedrich Otto (1833-1899)
Vögel der Heimat / Unsre (sic) Voglewelt in Lebensbildern 24.0 x 16.5 cm. π41-258266[$1, 2 signed]; 210 ll. Pp. [I-III]IV[V]VI-VIII[1]2-410[411](412). Original publisher’s olive green cloth binding with oval colored plate on upper cover. Reticulated edges. Wien: F. Tempsky, Prag: F. Tempsky, Leipzig, G. Freytag, 1887. Printed by Hofbuchdruckerei Carl Fromme, Wien.
I, Title; III, foreword; V, contents; VI, list of colored plates; 1, text; 400, index; 408, index to illustrated species; 411, errata. Contains Tafel I-XXXX which are not sequentially placed.
This is an attractive, rather uncommon book. The author is best known for a fine four-volume work on cage birds and for his writing on parrots in captivity. The present work contains a few general introductory comments about ornithology and then provides, from a popular perspective, good physical descriptions and discussions of the habits and life histories for each of a systematic list of species found in Central Europe. More than 120 of these are illustrated on the 40 chromolithographic plates.
The plates each show about three species in an appropriate environment and are appealing. They were taken from watercolors done by Emil Schmidt whose initials appear on some, but not all, of the images. Each plate has the printed designation on the lower left: “F. Tempsky in Prag u(nd) G. Freytag in Leipzig”. Printed on the lower right is the firm responsible for the chromolithography: either “Kais(er) kön(igliche) Hof Lithographie v(on) A. Haase in Prag” or “Chromolithog. v(on) August Osterieth, Frankfurt a M.
I saw this volume for the first time at an exhibition on ornithological books called “Splendid Plumage” (explanatory book: The Bird Illustrated) that was mounted by the New York Public Library in 1988. It was cited for the excellence of its chromolithography and I made a mental note to purchase it if I could ever do so. This was my first opportunity. Unfortunately, the copy is neither as fresh nor clean as I had hoped and the pictures not quite so bright as those I remembered. None-the-less, they are still quite pleasing.
Yale, p. 248; Nissen, #805. Both of these references say that the work was issued in 18 parts. Unlisted by Trinity, Wood, Zimmer and absent from libraries of Harvard, Cornell and AMNH.
The Richard L. Soffer Ornithology Collection by Richard L. Soffer is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.amherst.edu.