Natural history & science
Observations on the Orifices found in certain Poisonous Snakes…
London: W.Bulmer and Co, 1804.
Snakes preserved at the Hunterian Museum
Quarto offprint, title-page, 7 pp., engraved plate; recent wrappers. Detailed monograph on the venom glands of deadly serpents, with a detailed engraved plate, published as an offprint of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Sir Everard Home (1756-1832)...
Price (AUD):
$750.00
Ref: #4007879
D.D. Fauna Novae Hollandiae…
Uppsala: Royal Academy Press, 1822.
An Australian Fauna
Small quarto, [ii], 8 pp.; uncut and unbound, as issued. A scarce and significant academic paper, this was the first serious attempt at compiling a formal fauna of Australia, in the form of a dissertation presented by Huss before Carl Thunberg, Linnaeus's...
Price (AUD):
$3,600.00
Ref: #2901028
Acta Societas Scientiarum Indo-Neerlandicae…
Batavia: Typis Lange and Co., 1856-, 1859. Six volumes, illustrated with 26 lithographs, mostly depicting spiders and fishes, (including seven ichthyological plates), one fine coloured lithograph of a Hornbill, large folding map of the central Javanese provinces of Kadoe and Bagelen, in a recent library binding of dark blue cloth...
Price (AUD):
$5,850.00
Ref: #3811933
Six Months in South Australia; with some account of Port Philip…
London: J. Cross, 1838.
In a Sangorski binding
Octavo, with folding map of Port Lincoln as frontispiece and another map of Encounter Bay (not noted by Ferguson), with the 4-page Postscript; in fine condition, in a fine full niger morocco binding by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, top edges gilt, others rough-trimmed...
Price (AUD):
$2,200.00
Ref: #4107248
Cenni sul Museo Civico di Milano…
Milano: Giacomo Pirola, 1857.
The first guide to the natural history collections of Milan
Large octavo, large folding plan, 61 pp.; in neat modern green paper boards. Complete with the large folding plan, which gives a detailed overview of a collection of international significance, and one which included one of...
Price (AUD):
$2,950.00
Ref: #4403274
The Naturalist's Library.
Edinburgh: Lizars; and London, Bohn, 1835 to 1866.
A "complete" natural history, beautifully illustrated
Complete set of 40 volumes, small octavo, each volume with portrait frontispiece & engraved and printed title-page to each volume, and some 1248 handcoloured engraved plates (see note below), making a total of 1328 plates; in...
Price (AUD):
$9,850.00
Ref: #4504064
Wolliger Kanguruh.
Germany: circa 1860.
Kangaroo and Pangolin
Lithograph, 205 x 290 mm. Handsomely executed lithograph of a kangaroo from a mid-nineteenth century German zoological handbook; also depicted is a Javanese pangolin (scaly ant-eater).
Price (AUD):
$250.00
Ref: #2904308
A Modern System of Natural History…
London: F. Newberry, 1775.
First children's book to include the kangaroo
Twelve duodecimo volumes, with 117 engraved plates (of 118, lacking single plate); preliminaries thumbed, title of one volume perforated and another significantly browned, one leaf of text ink-stained, general foxing and offsetting; worn contemporary sheep, scuffed with split hinges;...
Price (AUD):
$3,800.00
Ref: #4402888
Reports of the Council and Auditors of the Zoological Society of London…
London: Printed by Richard Taylor, 1835.
Kangaroos in London
Octavo, 26 pp., damage to the top edge, otherwise very good, stitch-sewn as issued. A good early report of the Zoological Society of London which had been founded only nine years earlier in 1826. The report does not merely provide financial...
Price (AUD):
$675.00
Ref: #4103468
Monographia Apum Angliae…
Ipswich: Printed for the Author by J. Raw, 1802.
Australian bees collected by Sir Joseph Banks
Two volumes bound in one, octavo, 18 plates (4 with original hand-colouring), half-titles and errata leaf, bookplate; an attractive work in early polished tan half calf, banded spine with morocco label. A lovely copy...
Price (AUD):
$1,450.00
Ref: #3911436
Enumeratio Plantarum Omnium Hucusque Cognitarum, secundum familias naturales disposita, adjectis characteribus, differentiis et synonymis…
Stuttgart and Tübingen: sumtibus J.G. Cottae, 1833-, 1850.
The new science of botany
Six volumes, octavo, each volume with both series title and individual title bound in, supplement volume with 40 plates, some toning and spotting; an excellent set in contemporary tan quarter calf, gilt. A magisterial six-volume work, heavily.....
Price (AUD):
$3,250.00
Ref: #4504642
Stirpes Novæ, aut minus cognitæ, quas descriptionibus et iconibus illustravit.
Paris: Paris Philip-Dionysius Pieres (part-titles add: sold by Louis-Nicolas Prevost, Paris; Peter Elmsley, London; and Rudolph Gräffer, Vienna and Leipzig), 1784-1791.
The first book with engravings after Redouté: with 91 hand-coloured botanical plates
6 parts in 1 volume, folio, (510 x 355 mm); with a general title-page, six part-titles (each...
Price (AUD):
$62,000.00
Ref: #4505038
Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen.
Paris: Huzard, 1804.
A beautiful set of the foundation work of Australian botany
Two volumes, royal quarto, with a total of 265 engraved plates; a fine copy in French quarter dark green morocco, double crimson labels on gilt spines, green glazed sides. A superb set in an attractive French binding...
Price (AUD):
$48,500.00
Ref: #4504972
Systema Eleutheratorum secundum ordines, genera, species adiectis synonymis, locis, observationibus, descriptionibus.
Kiliae: Impensis Bibliopolii Academici Novi, 1801.
Australian insects collected on the d'Entrecasteaux voyage
Two volumes, thick octavo, neat library stamps to both titles, occasional early manuscript annotations; an excellent set in contemporary glazed paper boards, gilt. The first work by the great Danish naturalist Fabricius to incorporate newly discovered species...
Price (AUD):
$2,200.00
Ref: #3912463
A General History of Birds.
London: Bohn, circa 1845.
The deluxe edition, with plates "like highly finished drawings"
Eleven volumes (the eleventh the Index) bound in ten, quarto, with 193 handcoloured etched plates, some with 1838 watermarks; contemporary half brown morocco. One of the great illustrated bird books, with a remarkable number of species of...
Price (AUD):
$28,000.00
Ref: #3105210
Genera crustaceorum et insectorum, secundum ordinem naturalem…
Paris and Strasbourg: A. Koening, 1806-1809.
Contemporary of Cuvier
Four volumes, octavo, 12 plates and 2 folding tables; in contemporary marbled paper boards with spine labels, old shelf markers to spine. First edition. Pierre André Latreille (1762-1833) had entered the Paris Museum in 1799, and became Professor of Entomology on...
Price (AUD):
$4,200.00
Ref: #3912548
Histoire naturelle des fourmis, et recueil de memoires et d'observations sur les abeilles, les araignées, les faucheurs et autres insectes.
Paris: Théophile Barrois père, 1802. Octavo, 12 hand-coloured plates and 2 folding tables, an excellent copy in contemporary quarter calf, gilt. First edition: the rare hand-coloured edition with, among much of Pacific interest, two Australian "Bull Dog" ants figured for the first time on the handsome engraved plates. Pierre André.....
Price (AUD):
$2,600.00
Ref: #4003735
Novarum et minus cognitarum stirpium Pugillus...
Hamburg: Meissner, 1831-1851.
Australian specimens in the Hamburg botanical garden
Four separately printed parts, slim quarto, original wrappers. Four very scarce catalogues of bryophytes or non-vascular plants in the botanical collection at Hamburg, including ten New Holland Species, one from New Zealand and another specifically noted as a native species...
Price (AUD):
$1,850.00
Ref: #4306494
Moeurs, Instinct et singularités de la vie des Animaux Mammifères.
Paris: Paulin, 1842.
including Australian species
Octavo, 294pp (including 2pp index); original publisher's wrappers, spine strengthened. Very scarce: five Australian species are included in this zoological study. Most of the mammals discussed would have been encountered by Lesson during his three-year voyage under Duperrey and Dumont d'Urville. As naval surgeon...
Price (AUD):
$4,250.00
Ref: #4504294
Reed Warbler
London: J.H. Bohte, 1822. Handcoloured engraving, 289 x210mm.; mounted. The Reed Warbler is an interesting bird, found down Eastern Australia to Victoria and Tasmania, but coming and going mysteriously in the southern parts of its habitat. Besides being a migrant, the Reed Warbler, as its name indicates, is a merry...
Price (AUD):
$3,500.00
Ref: #4111695
White-eared Honey-eater.
London: J.H. Bohte, 1838.
Australia's first professional artist
Engraved plate with contemporary handcolouring, 280 x210mm. The graceful Sydney honey-eater engraved by Australia's first professional artist John Lewin, who arrived in the colony in 1800 and established himself as our first natural history illustrator. Aside from being Australia's first natural history...
Price (AUD):
$2,500.00
Ref: #4312700
Das zoologische Museum der Universität zu Berlin.
Berlin: Ferdinand Dümmler, 1816.
Many Australian species, including a long but baffled study of the platypus
Octavo, folding plate, single page errata, neat library stamps to title-page, author's presentation note to inside front cover "vom Verfasser"; an excellent copy in the original pink wrappers. Author's presentation copy of this rare.....
Price (AUD):
$5,850.00
Ref: #3812975
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'Über einen neuen Flederhund, Pteropus scapulatus, aus Neuholland'…
Berlin: Buchdruckerei der Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften, August, 1862. Octavo, 2 plates, pp. numbered 545-577; an excellent copy in the original printed buff paper wrappers. Uncommon copy of the "monthly journal" of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin for August 1862, with the first notice of the Australian Little...
Price (AUD):
$850.00
Ref: #3910337
Linnean Society of New South Wales. The Macleay Memorial Volume.
Sydney: 1893. Quarto, photograph as frontispiece (offset onto title, as always) and 42 photographic or lithographic plates; uncut and partly unopened in the original green wrappers. An influential and well illustrated collection of zoological articles, published by the Linnean Society as a memorial to William Macleay, its first and most...
Price (AUD):
$450.00
Ref: #2400719