Biology & Natural History
(Gould, Stephen Jay) Mitchell, W. J. T. | The Last Dinosaur Book
£200.00
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First edition, first printing. Presentation copy inscribed by the author to palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould on the front free endpaper, “For Steven [sic], This was written to you. Warm regards, Tim Mitchell”. Loosely inserted is a bookmark promoting Gould’s talk “Pattern and Lack of Progress in the History of Life”, the keynote lecture for Dinofest International 1996.
The Last Dinosaur Book was the first comprehensive, critical enquiry into the depiction of dinosaurs in popular culture, revealing “a cultural symbol whose plurality of meaning and often contradictory nature is emblematic of modern society itself”. Author W. J. T. Mitchell is a professor of English literature and art history at the University of Chicago. “A scholar and theorist of media, visual art, and literature, Mitchell is associated with the emergent fields of visual culture and iconology (the study of images across the media). He is known especially for his work on the relations of visual and verbal representations in the context of social and political issues” and is editor of the journal Critical Inquiry and the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (University of Chicago biography).
Recipient Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. His theory of punctuated equilibria challenged the idea that evolution is a slow and constant accumulation of changes, pointing out that instead it often occurs in rapid bursts of speciation followed by periods of stasis. He was a prominent defender of teaching evolution in schools and a leading critic of the field of sociobiology, which he saw as providing a pseudoscientific basis for discrimination. But he was best known as a popular science writer, penning three hundred essays that were originally published in Natural History Magazine.
Gould is cited in the text several times, on the “archetypal fascination” of dinosaurs as “alluringly scary, but sufficiently safe” because of their extinction; on their commercialisation turning them from “sources of awe into clichés and commodities”; and on contemporary scientific disputes about dinosaur biology and evolution.
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...The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine in copper, blue endpapers. With the dust jacket. Colour illustrations throughout. Just a tiny spot of delamination at the lower edge of the jacket. An excellent, fresh copy.
(Gould, Stephen Jay) Wilford, John Noble | The Riddle of the Dinosaur
£250.00
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First edition, first printing. Presentation copy inscribed by the author on the half title, “To Stephen Jay Gould, Many thanks for the inspiration of your essays. Best wishes, John Noble Wilford”.
A lovely copy of this popular account of recent developments in dinosaur palaeontology, including the discoveries that they were likely warm-blooded and that a comet probably caused their extinction, by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist John Noble Wilford (1933 - ). Wilford was responsible for the paper’s front-page story on the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969, and his by-line was the only one that appeared on the front page that day. Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, described one of the sentences in the Moon landing piece – describing Armstrong’ heart-rate during the descent to the surface – as “one of the most elegant little uses of data I can recall seeing in a news article” (Dubner, “When Data Tell the Story”, Freakonomics blog, July 21, 2009).
Recipient Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) was one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. His theory of punctuated equilibria challenged the idea that evolution is a slow and constant accumulation of changes, pointing out that instead it often occurs in rapid bursts of speciation followed by periods of stasis. He was a prominent defender of teaching evolution in schools and a leading critic of the field of sociobiology, which he saw as providing a pseudoscientific basis for discrimination. But he was best known as a popular science writer, penning three hundred essays that were originally published in Natural History Magazine. In 1991 Wilford reviewed Gould’s fifth essay collection, Bully for Brontosaurus, calling its contents “provocative and delightfully discursive”.
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...Drawings by Douglas Henderson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
Quarto. Original grey boards, cream cloth backstrip, titles to spine and author’s name to upper board in gilt and copper. With the dust jacket. 6 colour plates, illustrations and charts within the text. An excellent copy in the jacket with just a couple of miniscule rubbed spots and faint toning along the upper edges.
(Ratcliffe, Derek) Howard, H. Eliot | Territory in Bird Life.
£100.00
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First edition, first impression of the book that popularised the modern understanding of territoriality among male birds. From the library of the important conservationist Derek Ratcliffe (1929-2005), who discovered the effect of DDT-related eggshell thinning on peregrine falcon populations. With his ownership inscription on the front free endpaper, dated 24 July, 1964.
Author H. Elliot Howard (1873-1940) was an amateur ornithologist whose study of warblers led him to the conclusion that male birds fight not for females, but directly for territory, which then attracts females. This was first explicated in The British Warblers: a History with Problems of Their Lives (published in parts between 1907 and 14). The lavishly illustrated work was well-reviewed, but too expensive for a general readership, so Howard published Territory in Bird Life in 1920. This popular work explores all aspects of territory among many different species, and “from the late 1920s the theory became increasingly influential both in Europe and the United States” (Online Dictionary of National Biography).
“Howard was not, in fact, the first person to discover territory in birds for, unknown to him, J. B. Altum in 1868 in Germany and C. B. Moffat in 1903 in Ireland had described its main features. However, it was Howard's persuasive and extensive exposition of the concept that established its importance and brought it to international ornithological notice; it is a striking example of an amateur significantly influencing modern scientific research” (ODNB).
This former owner of this copy was Derek Ratcliffe, one of the most influential British conservationists of the 20th century. Ratcliffe was educated as a botanist, completing his PhD at Bangor in 1953, and then being appointed a scientific officer for the Nature Conservancy in Edinburgh. He made important surveys of plant and bird communities in the Scottish Highlands, many of which had never been studied in detail. During 1961-62 he completed the first survey of British peregrine falcons, discovering that they were declining in numbers and even ceasing to breed at all in some areas. "The cause of the decline was persistent pesticides, notably DDT, which caused eggshell thinning and catastrophic breeding failure. Ratcliffe published a classic paper on eggshell thinning in the journal Nature in 1967, and a more detailed paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology in 1970, both of which were among the most frequently cited ornithological scientific publications" (ODNB).
In the 1960s and 70s, as scientific assessor for the Nature Conservancy, he led efforts to inventory Britain’s most important natural sites. “At the heart of this work was the exposition of a philosophy for nature conservation founded on the use of such concepts as 'diversity', 'fragility', and 'naturalness', which enabled scientists systematically to compare sites and even regions. This became, and remained, the cornerstone of nature conservation, culminating in the publication of the two-volume book edited by Ratcliffe, A Nature Conservation Review (1977)” (ODNB). During the 1980s he led the movement to establish sites of special scientific interest throughout Britain, and was a key player in the drive to prevent industrial scale pine tree planting on the critically important flow country habitat in northern Scotland.
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...With Illustrations by G. E. Lodge and H. Grönvold. London: John Murray, 1920.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. Colour frontispiece and 10 black and white plates with tissue guards, double-page map. Errata slip at page 238, single leaf of publisher’s ads at rear. Binding lightly rubbed at the extremities, faint spotting to the edges of the text block, free endpapers partially tanned. An excellent copy.
(Zallinger, Rudolph) Ostrom, John H. & Theodore Delevoryas | A Guide to the Rudolph Zallinger Mural The Age of Reptiles
£35.00
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Reissue of this illustrated visitor’s guide to the magisterial Age of Reptiles mural in the Great Hall of Yale’s Peabody Museum, written by John Ostrom, one of the most important palaeontologists of the 20th century. Originally published in 1966 in the same pamphlet form. A beautiful copy in unusually nice condition.
“The Age of Reptiles mural is an artistic masterpiece and was, for its time, perhaps the most scientifically accurate representation of the Mesozoic world ever created” (Black, “Creating the Age of Reptiles”, Smithsonian Magazine, January 3, 2012). The 110-foot-long, 16-foot-high mural was completed between 1943 and 1947 by art student Rudolph Zallinger (1919-1995), who had previously been employed at the museum painting seaweed specimens. Museum director Albert Parr had initially envisioned the space broken into panels illustrating individual species, but Zallinger developed the idea for a “sweep through time” from the Devonian period to the Cretaceous, “more than three million years of earth history” (introduction to the present).
“With the format established, Zallinger was rapidly schooled in vertebrate paleontology, paleobotany and anatomy by the museum’s experts. The animals had to be scientifically accurate, their environments appropriately stocked with plants from the right era, and the whole fossil cast had to fit together in an aesthetically pleasing style. Accuracy was of extreme importance, but so was making the painting visually appealing to visitors... The artist also faced the technical decision of how to execute the mural. Zallinger decided on a fresco secco, a classic method in which pigments are combined with egg and water and are painted on dried plaster that is moistened at the time of application. As Zallinger composed each successive rendition of the mural, the space he was going to paint on was prepared and covered in plaster. What is remarkable is how early Zallinger arrived at what became the final layout for his Mesozoic panorama. While the fine details of the plants and animals changed with each ever-more-detailed version, their general shapes and poses were established by the time Zallinger created a 1943 ‘cartoon’ version of the mural on rag paper” (Black).
The mural is one of the largest paintings in the world, and earned its creator a Pulitzer Fellowship in Art in 1949. It was highly influential in both paleontological art and in popular culture during the mid-century. A number of guides to the mural have been published over the years, including this one by John H. Ostrom (1928 - 2005). Ostrom was a Yale professor, director of the Peabody Museum, and “the most influential palaeontologist of the second half of the 20th century” (Dodson & Gingerich, “John H. Ostrom”, American Journal of Science, volume 306, number 1, January 2006). He discovered that dinosaurs had the metabolisms and agility of mammals and birds, and that they were closely related to modern birds, leading to the “dinosaur renaissance” of the second half of the century.
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...in the Peabody Museum, Yale University. Discovery Supplement Number 1. New Haven, CT: Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, 1966.
38-page pamphlet, wire-stitched. Original green wrappers printed in black. Folding plate depicting the mural and “Earth Clock”. Pencilled number to the edge of the upper wrapper. A fine copy.
Augusta, Joseph, Greta Hort, & Zdeněk Burian | Prehistoric Animals
£250.00
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First English language edition, first impression of this vibrantly illustrated work, originally published in Prague under the title Tiere der Urzeit in the same year. Rare in the dust jacket in such nice condition.
Between the 1930s and 1960s “the foremost painter of dinosaur restorations was Zdeněk Burian (1905-1981). His canvasses were used to illustrate a number of popular books on prehistoric life by Joseph Augusta, and in the late 1950s and 1960s these were translated into English and widely circulated. So the Burian illustrations offered an alternative to those of Zallinger [responsible for the Peabody Museum mural], or of the late Charles Knight. But there was not much of a difference. Apatosaurus and Diplodocus stand quietly by their respective swamps, accompanied by partially submerged relatives. A T. rex besets a pair of Trachodon, but none of the three lifts a leg off the ground, or even seems to be moving at all” (Ashworth, Paper Dinosaurs 48). Though his dinosaurs are no longer considered anatomically accurate, Burian was highly respected in his time and his paintings were widely reproduced and copied, often without acknowledgement. In 2017 the first dinosaur discovered in the Czech Republic was named in his and Augusta’s honour, Burianosaurus augustai.
The author of the text, Joseph Augusta (1903-1968) was a palaeontologist at Charles University in Prague between 1933 and 1968, and is best known for his role as a science populariser. He published around twenty books on science for the general public and served as an advisor to the hit 1955 film Journey to the Beginning of Time (Cesta do Pravěku), which combined human actors with stop-motion special effects.
The translator of the book, Greta Hort (1903-1967), was born in Copenhagen, the daughter of Vilhelm Hjort, astronomer royal. She earned her PhD at Newnham College, Cambridge and then became a research fellow at Girton College, publishing on mysticism and religious thought. In 1938 Hort was appointed principal of University Women's College (later University College) at the University of Melbourne. She was later made chair of English literature at Aarhus University, Denmark (Australian Dictionary of Biography).
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...Illustrated under the direction of the author by Zdeněk Burian. Translated by Dr. Greta Hort. London: Spring Books, [1956].
Folio. Original buff, heavy-grain cloth, titles to spine and Stegosaurus design to upper board in brown. With the dust jacket. 60 lithographic plates of which 31 are in colour. Lower corner of the binding knocked, which has also slightly creased the corner of the text block and the jacket, spine rolled. A very good copy in the bright jacket that is lightly rubbed at the extremities with a few nicks and short closed splits.
Chinsamy-Turan, Anusuya | The Microstructure of Dinosaur Bone
£150.00
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First edition, first printing. A superb copy of the first book devoted solely to dinosaur bone histology.
Some of the earliest paleontological researchers, including Louis Agassiz and Gideon Mantell, studied the microscopic structure of fossilised bones, but it was not until the 1950s that “the systematic study of archosaur palaeohistology began in earnest with the pioneering studies of Enlow & Brown”, who showed that cellular structure was preserved intact in fossils and that it “contained a wealth of information regarding the evolution and function of skeletal tissues in extinct organisms”. This was followed in the 1970s by the work of Armand de Ricqlès, who posited that “palaeohistological features could be correlated with growth rates and thus could indirectly shed light on the thermal physiology of extinct organisms”, in other words, that the microstructures of bones could reveal whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded (Bailleul, et al. “Dinosaur Palaeohistology: Review, Trends, and New Avenues of Investigation”, PeerJ, September 2019, pp. 3-4).
Author Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan (1962 - ), of the University of Cape Town, was the first scientist to attempt reconstruction of a dinosaur growth curve based on the microstructure of its fossilised bones, and is today one of the world’s leading experts on dinosaur histology. She is the author of more than one hundred academic articles and four books, and has won numerous awards, including the Academy of Science of South Africa’s Gold Medal.
The Microstructure of Dinosaur Bones draws on Chinsamy-Turan’s extensive experience in this field. “In this well-written, well-edited volume, she concludes that bone microstructure does indicate how bone formed during growth, and it does provide information on how factors such as seasonality, ontogenetic age, and lifestyle adaptations affected its growth, but she also finds that speculations about physiology based on bone histology are just that: speculations... Chinsamy-Turan has done the scientific community a great service by pulling together the wealth of information about dinosaur bone microstructure, and interpreting that information clearly and logically. Starting with a clear explanation of the organization of bone tissue on a microstructural level and the changes in bone composition during fossilization, she moves on to a helpful overview of dinosaur phylogeny and an insightful explanation of modern approaches to the study of dinosaur bones. Detailed descriptions of bone biology and beautiful color plates of dinosaur bone histology make dinosaur osteology accessible to any biologist who is fascinated with the biology of dinosaurs, as well as to both professors and graduate students working in this field” (Spotila, “Bred in the Bone: Bone Microstructures Bring Dinosaurs to Life”, BioScience 56 (3), 2006).
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...Deciphering Biology with Fine-Scale Techniques. Baltimore & London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
Octavo. Original black cloth, titles to spine in silver. With the dust jacket. 4 double-sided plates from colour photographs, diagrams, charts, and illustrations from black and white photos throughout the text. Excellent condition, with just a single tiny bump to the edge of the upper board and a few small scratches to the dust jacket.
Emiliani, Cesare | Ancient Temperatures
£35.00
- Offprint of an early popular article on ancient climate by one of the founders of the field, Cesare Emiliani (1922-1995).
During the late 1950s Emiliani studied the tests (shells) of marine amoebas called foraminifera that are found in samples taken from the floors of the deep oceans. He realised that the oxygen isotope composition of the tests was influenced by atmospheric conditions at the time they were alive and that the deep-sea cores could be used to chart climate going back millions of years. This work laid the foundations for modern analysis of past climates. It also established that the ice ages were a cyclic phenomena; contributed to our understanding ocean floor spreading and plate tectonics; and provided influential support for the hypothesis of Milutin Milanković that climate changes in the deep past had been driven by long-term alterations in the Earth’s orbit and geology. Emiliani remained a leading figure in the study of Earth’s climate history through the 1990s, and was awarded both the Vega Medal and the Alexander Aggasiz Medal. -
...Reprinted from Scientific American, February 1958. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1958.
12 page pamphlet, stapled. Illustrations throughout. Very faintly toned at the extreme edges of the spine and wrappers. A superb copy.
Gilmore, Charles W. | "A Nearly Complete Articulated Skeleton of Camarasaurus
£350.00
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The rare offprint announcing “the most perfect sauropod skeleton ever discovered” (Ashworth, Paper Dinosaurs 40).
This superb, nearly complete specimen of a juvenile Camarasaurus was discovered at the Carnegie quarry shortly after it became Dinosaur National Monument. “In 1925 Gilmore described the specimen in this fully illustrated memoir” which includes a photo of the fossil as it was found and later as it was displayed as a panel mount (Ashworth). “The articulation of the bones allowed Gilmore to conclude that Camarasaurus did not have its highest elevation at the shoulders, as Osborn and Mook had reconstructed it, but rather stood highest at the hips, like Apatosaurus and Diplodocus” (Ashworth).
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...a Saurischian Dinosaur from the Dinosaur National Monument, Utah". [And] "Osteology of Ornithopodous Dinosaurs from the Dinosaur National Monument, Utah." Extracted from Memoirs Carnegie Museum, Vol. X. No. 3, pp. 347-410. Issued July 10, 1925. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Museum, 1925.
Folio. Original wrappers printed in black, wire-stitched. Unopened. Housed in a new, custom archival folder by Bainbridge Conservation. 6 plates, of which 1 is folding. This offprint was previously bound in an over-sized card binding applied by a library, with the upper and lower wrapper each having an additional stiff paper backing applied. The card binding has been removed by Bainbridge Conservation, who professionally conserved the spine with tissue, but the staff paper backing on the wrappers has been left intact. Some loss from the corners of the original wrappers, especially the upper wrapper, but not affecting text. Edges of wrappers a little toned, minor paper flaws affecting a few leaves, top corners of the final few leaves creased. A good copy.
Gunther, Robert Theodore [manuscript by Lionel James Picton] | Coelenterata: Hydrozoa, Acraspeda, Anthozoa, Ctenophora. Notes from the Lectures of Mr. R. Gunther of Magdalen...
£650.00
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RESERVED A remarkable and unusual anatomical manuscript on jellyfish based on laboratory work and lectures by Oxford zoologist Robert Theodore Gunther (1869-1940). The title, Coelenterata, is an antiquated term for species in the phyla Cnidaria (corals, sea anemones, true jellies) and Ctenophora (comb jellies). The student who compiled these notes would win the Welsh Prize for anatomical drawing in 1898 and go on to become a highly respected physician. While volumes of lecture notes in popular subjects such as zoology, anatomy, and botany are not uncommon, we have never come across one related to species such as jellyfish.
Gunther was the child of the zoologist Albert Charles Lewis Gotthilf Günther (1830–1914) and Roberta M’Intosh, herself “a gifted zoological painter” and he “absorbed his family's consummate involvement in medicine, natural history, and the museum”. After graduating with a first in morphology (now termed zoology) from oxford he spent two years studying marine and freshwater medusae at the Marine Zoological Research Laboratory in Naples.
Gunther was appointed lecturer in natural science at Magdalen College, Oxford in 1894, beginning this course in the same year. “As natural science tutor he had supervision of all Magdalen's science students, and from 1894 of the Daubeny Laboratory (which served a wider clientele within the university). He also lectured in comparative anatomy (biology) from 1900 to 1918, was librarian, 1920–23, published various works relating to Magdalen's history, and was a curator of the adjacent botanic garden, 1914–20” (ODNB).
The compiler of these notes, Lionel James Picton OBE (1874-1948) earned undergraduate degrees at Oxford in 1901 the year after he qualified in medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. After several years as house surgeon at institutions in London and Liverpool he settled in practice at Holmes Chapel, a village Cheshire. He served as a medical officer for the nearby urban district of Winsford and as surgeon to the town’s infirmary. Picton was a driving force for innovation in medical care and administration both regionally and nationally as a member of the British Medical Association. He was particularly interested in the connections between agriculture and nutrition, particularly “the treatment of soils and the nourishing of crops by suitable manures and the breeding of tubercule-immune cattle... and the preparation of wholemeal bread, raw greenstuffs, turnip juice, and other vegetable products” (obituary in the British Medical Journal, November 27, 1948) and in 1946 published a book on the subject, Thoughts on Feeding.
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...delivered in the Michaelmas term ‘94 & the Hilary term 1895: A : Di in the University Museum — supplemented by notes and sketches of laboratory work, & other additional matter from various sources. Merton College, Oxford. Oxford, 1894-95.
184-page manuscript (205 x 166 mm, text primarily on the rectos) bound in pale cloth, title “Coelenterata” in gilt to the spine and upper board. Extensive lecture notes and drawings in black ink with numerous elaborate illustrations, many coloured in with pencils. Cloth stained and darkened, hinges starting. Very good condition.
Hassard, Annie | Floral Decorations for the Dwelling House
£150.00
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First edition, and a lovely copy, of this delightful work on flower arrangements and indoor plants that was highly praised by contemporaries.
By 1875, botanical pursuits such as flower and fern collecting, pressing, and arranging had been a major hobby for British women for at least a generation. Floral Decorations for the Dwelling House expanded on the work of earlier authors, such as A. E. Maling (Flowers for Ornament and Decoration, 1875), by adding advice on living plants in addition to cut flowers. It “offers a very detailed account, both practically and artistically oriented, of the best plants and best pieces of equipment to use for a wide variety of indoor plant and flower decorations, from bouquets to dining tables, window displays, hanging baskets and Christmas decorations, as well as giving advice on how best to arrange them” (Sparke, Nature Inside, p. 48).
The book was praised in the January 1876 issue of The Floral World and Garden Guide as “a systematic treatise on the subject. The truth is, the gifted author of this stands alone and far in advance of all competitors, whether as an exhibitor or a judge of exhibitions, whether in the preparation of a bouquet for a princess or the decoration of a grand saloon for an important public ceremony”. In that year an American edition was published by Macmillan, in which additional emphasis was placed on living plants in decorative schemes (Sparke).
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...A Practical Guide to the Home Arrangement of Plants and Flowers. With Numerous Illustrations. London: Macmillan & Co., 1875. Octavo. Original green cloth elaborately blocked in gilt and black with floral designs on the spine and upper board, brown coated endpapers. Burn & Co. binder’s ticket to the rear pastedown. 9 steel engraved plates, steel engravings throughout the text. Single leaf of ads at rear. Blind stamp of the W. H. Smith lending library to the front free endpaper. Cloth only very lightly rubbed at the extremities with a few small marks, a few light spots to the title. An excellent copy.
Lebour, Marie V. | The Planktonic Diatoms of the Northern Seas
£250.00
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First edition, first impression. Presentation copy inscribed by the author to her sister on the front free endpaper, “To dear Yvonne, From M. V. L.” (see Lebour’s obituary in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, volume 52, p. 778).
Diatoms, a type of phytoplankton, are one of the earth’s keystone species. They are microscopic algae with silica shells that live in both freshwater and marine environments, and produce an amount of oxygen comparable to that of the all terrestrial rainforests combined. They are a primary food source for many other organisms, and accumulations of their shells in sediments record changes in the oceans and climate. Much was learned about phytoplankton during the early twentieth century, and marine biologist Marie Lebour (1876-1971) became one of the leading experts through her work at the Plymouth Marine Biological Laboratory. She “published two classical papers on this topic in 1917. Her subsequent work on taxonomy of plankton species resulted in her first book, Dinoflagellates of the Northern Seas, and in a subsequent volume in 1930 [the present work]. She identified no fewer than twenty-eight new species” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science). Lebour also studied molluscs and their parasites, euphausiid larvae, and the eggs and larvae of fish. She was also a talented draftsperson, and “her detailed and artistic sketches enhanced her publications” (Ogilvie).
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...With Four Plates. London: printed for the Ray Society, sold by Dulau & Co., Ltd., 1930.
Octavo. Original blue cloth elaborately blocked in blind, titles to spine and floral roundel to upper board gilt, yellow coated endpapers, top edge gilt. Ray Society half title with portrait vignette, 4 plates, engravings throughout the text. 16 page Ray Society membership and recent publications lists dated January 1930 at rear. Cloth just a little rubbed at the extremities, spine and edges of the boards tanned, free endpapers partially tanned. An excellent copy.
Maryańska, Teresa | O Gadach bez Sensacji
£250.00
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First edition, first impression. A rare copy of this charming, illustrated booklet on dinosaurs published by Warsaw’s Museum of the Earth. WorldCat only locates one copy, at the National Library of Poland. The detailed edition statement records that this book was submitted for typesetting in October 1969 and approved for printing in March 1970, with the order number dated 1969, for a total of 5,200 copies. Though the date 1979 appears above the statement, this is a typo, likely for 1970 (many thanks to Philip Penka of Bernett Penka Rare Books for the translation).
Author Teresa Maryańska (1937-2019)) was a leading dinosaur palaeontologist associated with the Museum of the Earth at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, where she as vice-director between 1976 and 2006. “Her research was initially on invertebrate palaeontology. Her thesis concerned the Bryozoa, but she was always interested in vertebrates and looked for an opportunity to study them. Eventually, she was invited to participate in the Polish-Mongolian Palaeontological Expeditions to the Gobi desert, and became an active, highly appreciated participant of all four expeditions” (Borsuk-Białynicka & Jakubowski, “In Memoriam: Teresa Maryańska”, Acta Palaeontologica, volume 64, number 4, 2019).
Maryańska’s first dinosaur research was on the ankylosaurs, and her magnum opus on their anatomy and taxonomy was published in 1977. She then worked on specimens of the pacycephalosaurs, protoceratopsians, and hadrosaurs, and oviraptors, and many of her discoveries were made while working closely with her colleague and friend Halszka Osmólska (1930-2008). She was also a co-author of several chapters of The Dinosauria, one of the most important scholarly reference works on dinosaurs, first published in 1990 and “unparalleled for its comprehensiveness at the time” (Borsuk-Białynicka). -
Warsaw: Wydawnictwa Geologiczne, Muzeum Ziemi pan Warszawa, 1970.
Duodecimo. Original yellow wrappers printed in black with a black and white photo of fossilised dinosaur skin to the upper wrapper. Folding map. Diagrams and illustrations from black and white photographs throughout the text. Contemporary price sticker to the rear cover. Wrappers a little tanned and rubbed, tail of spine bumped. A very good copy.
Morgan, Ann Haven | Field Book of Animals in Winter
£150.00
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First edition, first printing and a lovely copy in the dust jacket. The Field Book of Animals in Winter is much less common than Morgan’s book on ponds and streams, and is rarely found in such nice condition.
As a child, Ann Haven Morgan (1882-1966) developed a love of nature by exploring the areas around her home in Connecticut. She earned her bachelor’s degree and doctorate at Cornell, the latter under James G. Needham at the Limnological Laboratory.
Returning to Cornell, “she advanced steadily up the academic ladder, becoming a full professor in 1918. During the summer she conducted research and taught courses on echinoderms at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole... Although limnology (the study of inland waters) was her special subject – on which she wrote a useful book, Field Book of Ponds and Streams (1930) – Morgan was also interested in many other facets of zoology, particularly hibernating animals. Her Field Book of Animals in Winter (1939) reflected this interest. In 1949 the Encyclopaedia Britannica made it into an educational film” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science p. 913).
Among her other scientific interests were conservation and ecology and educational reform. Morgan was a member of numerous professional societies, including the American Entomological Society, American Society of Naturalists, American Society of Zoologists, and the New York Herpetological Society. She was prominent enough to be one of only three women included in the 1933 edition of American Men of Science. -
...With 283 Illustrations, Including 4 Full-Colour Plates. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1939.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt, all edges dyed red. With the dust jacket. Photographic frontispiece and 14 plates of which 11 are double-sided, including 2 double-sided colour illustrations. Numerous illustrations within the text. Yellow pencil sometimes used to highlight passages, primarily in the early chapters. A few tiny bumps at the edges of the cloth. An excellent, fresh copy in a very attractive example of the dust jacket that is lightly rubbed with some small nicks and chips, a little creasing at the edges, and mild toning of the spine panel.
Norman, David & Angela Milner | Eyewitness Books: Dinosaur
£150.00
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First edition, first impression of Dinosaur, one of the earliest titles in the best-selling Eyewitness Books series, together with the first printing of the American edition, published in the same year. Copies of the first printings of the 1980s Eyewitness books are scarce, particularly in such beautiful condition.
The publisher Dorling Kindersley was founded in London 1974, and in the 1980s began taking advantage of new design technologies to radically revise the traditional page layouts of children’s books. As they described to Children’s Software Review in 1997, the goal was to “slow down the pictures and speed up the text”, allowing children to “experience information from their own particular point of view” (cited by Stringham, “The Efficacy of Small Multiples in the Visual Language of Instructional Designs”, Brigham Young University thesis, 2012). "What DK did—with almost revolutionary panache—was essentially to reinvent nonfiction books by breaking up the solid pages of gray type that had previously been their hallmark, reducing the text to bite-size, nonlinear nuggets that were then surrounded by pictures that did more than adorn—they also conveyed information. Usually full color, they were so crisply reproduced they seemed to leap off the page” (Cart, “Eyewitness Books: Putting the Graphic in Lexographic”, Booklist, October 15, 2002). There are now more than 100 Eyewitness Books, and more than 50 million copies have been sold in thirty-six languages.
The first Eyewitness Books were published in 1988, and Dinosaur appeared the following year, one of the first sixteen in the series and still in print today. Its authors are both prominent palaeontologists. Angela Milner, of the Natural History Museum in London, has done important work on archaeopteryx, providing evidence in the debate over whether it was a bird or dinosaur. David Norman is curator of vertebrate paleontology at Cambridge University’s Sedgwick Museum. In 2017 he and two other paleontologists made the case for a complete revaluation of early dinosaur evolution and taxonomy, arguing that the two main dinosaur clades were more closely related than previously understood.
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London & New York: Dorling Kinderseley, Ltd. & Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1989.
2 volumes, tall quarto. Original glossy white boards illustrated with photos, dinosaur-patterned endpapers. Colour illustrations throughout. The London printing has faint toning of the front free endpaper, the New York printing is lightly rubbed at the tips. An excellent, fresh set.
Osborn, Henry Fairfield | A Complete Mosasaur Skeleton & A Skeleton of Diplodocus
£150.00
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First edition, first printing of this paper proposing that Diplodocus was not sluggish as generally believed, and that individuals might have been able to raise themselves onto two legs by balancing on their tails. An unusually fresh and attractive copy, the contents unopened.
Palaeontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935) was president of the American Museum of Natural History for twenty-five years, during which he oversaw significant work on the discovery, description, and naming of new dinosaur species discovered in western North America, most notably Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor, Albertosaurus, and Ornitholestes. As an administrator Osborn put new emphasis on museum displays, making them more visually appealing and accessible to the general public, though he also incorporated his profoundly racist and eugenicist views into those he designed for the Museum of Natural History.
The present paper describes a partial Diplodocus skeleton unearthed in Wyoming’s Como Bluffs by Barnum Brown and J. L. Wortman during 1897. Based on this skeleton, Osborn writes that, “There is a traditional view that these animals were ponderous and sluggish. This view may apply in a measure to Brontosaurus. In the case of Diplodocus it is certainly unsupported by facts” (p. 213) and also suggests that “The tail, secondly, functioned a lever to balance the weight of the dorsals, anterior limbs, neck and head, and to raise the entire forward portion of the body upwards. This power was certainly exerted while the animal was in the water, and possibly also while upon land” (p. 213). Modern research has confirmed Osborn’s assumptions, showing that Diplodocus’s musculo-skeletal structure probably allowed it to rear up on its hind legs with relative ease.
Bibliography: Linda Hall Library, Paper Dinosaurs 1824-1969, no. 24.
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Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History. Volume I, Parts IV and V. Part IV. — A Complete Mosasaur Skeleton, Osseous and Cartilaginous. Part V. — A Skeleton of Diplodocus. New York: The Knickerbocker Press for the American Museum of Natural History, October 25th, 1899.
Folio. Original grey wrappers printed in black. 7 photographic plates on glossy paper, folding diagram, illustrations throughout the text, some from photographs. Contents unopened. Slight wear at the ends of the spine, wrappers just a little frayed and tanned at the edges, faint toning to the edges of the leaves. An excellent copy.
Patterson, Flora W. & Vera K. Charles | Mushrooms and Other Common Fungi
£35.00
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First edition of this well-illustrated guide to mushroom identification for the amateur collector.
The first female mycologist to work at the United States Department of Agriculture, Flora Patterson (1847-1928) exhibited “the tenacity, audacity, and perspicacity of a true scientific visionary” (Reynolds, “Flora Patterson”, Women in Microbiology, p. 219). She initially studied fungi as a childhood hobby, then attended several universities as a non-traditional student, taking a plant pathology course at Iowa State and completing her education at Radcliffe College, from where she was able to work in the Harvard Grey Herbarium.
At the USDA Patterson “published on edible and poisonous mushrooms and on fungus diseases of economic importance, working and publishing with the mycologist Vera Charles” (Ogilvie, p. 990). Patterson directed the US National Fungus Collections for nearly thirty years, growing it from 19,000 to 115,000 specimens. She was in charge of identifying fungal diseases of agricultural importance, and made numerous important contributions in this area, including the identification of chestnut blight and pineapple rot. Her involvement in Japan’s gift of cherry trees to the US led to the passage of the Plant Quarantine Act of 1912.
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Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office for the United States Department of Agriculture, 1915.
Octavo. Original cream wrappers printed in black. 38 plates from photographs. Wrappers faintly toned, mild dampstain affecting the lower corner of the wrappers and text, with some abraded areas where the corners of the leaves have stuck together, not generally affecting text. Very good condition.
Peckham, George W. & Elizabeth G. On the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps
£150.00
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First edition, first printing of both titles, the “Additional Observations” being a presentation copy inscribed, “Mr, Claus H. Shirum [?], compliments of the authors”.
Authors Elizabeth and George Peckham were entomologists and archnologists who together pioneered the study of jumping spiders; were early proponents of including behaviour in taxonomical analysis; and performed some of the first studies on sexual selection. Elizabeth was the first female science graduate of Vasser, one of Milwaukee’s first librarians, and a suffragist. George obtained a medical degree but chose to teach high school, and in 1880 the Peckhams introduced the first biological laboratory course in an American High school, also incorporating Darwinian concepts in their pedagogy.
Together the Peckhams described 63 genera and 366 species, and one genus, at least twenty species, and a scientific society are named in their honour. Following George’s death in 1914, Elizabeth continued their scientific work and was awarded a PhD by Cornell in 1914. On the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps is now considered a scientific classic, for both its style and scholarship. -
[Bound together with] “Additional Observations on the Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps” [in] Bulletin of the Wisconsin Natural History Society, vol. 1, no. 2, April 1900. Madison, WI: the state of Wisconsin, 1898.
Octavo. Contemporary library style binding of black half skiver, black cloth sides, spine gilt in compartments. 14 plates of which 2 are chromolithographs and the 12 are lithographs. Binding rubbed with wear at the corners, spine ends, and hinges, contents toned. A very good copy.
Robertson-Miller, Ellen. Butterfly and Moth Book
Sold Out
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First edition, first printing. A beautiful copy of this uncommon and attractively designed work on butterflies and moths with numerous illustrations by the author.
Ellen Bell Robertson-Miller (1859-1937) was a noted painter, naturalist, and columnist who studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students’ League of New York. In addition to entomology, Robertston-Miller was interested in marine life and ornithology, and often held speaking engagements and published articles on natural subjects. She was co-author of Wild Flowers of the North-Eastern States (1895) with Margaret Christine Whiting.
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...Personal Studies and Observations of the More Familiar Species. With Illustrations from Drawings by the Author and Photographs by J. Lyonel King, G. A. Bash, Dr. F. D. Snyder and Others. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912.
Octavo. Original grey cloth elaborately blocked with an Art Nouveau design of a yellow swallowtail butterfly to the upper board and spine, buff endpapers. Photographic frontispiece with tissue guard, illustrations throughout the text from both photographs and drawings. Bookplate of John M. Witheridge. Fine condition.
Schmid, Bastian | Vergleichende Anatomie der Wirbeltiere: Die Zauneidechse. Lacerta agilis.
£850.00
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Uncommon, early-20th century anatomical relief of the European lizard species Lacerta agilis (the sand lizard). The publisher’s archive copy, in excellent condition in the original box.
This relief was one of a series produced for schools, Vergleichende Anatomie der Wirbeltiere (Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates), designed by the German behavioural scientist and educational writer Bastian Schmid (1870-1944) for the major educational publisher J. F. Schreiber. The printed paper label on the back gives the names of the lizards’ body parts and also introduces the diagram, “In the lizard, the anatomical character of the reptiles is expressed in a clear manner. Therefore, a representative of this group, namely our well-known sand lizard, is presented as the fourth type in this series Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates...”.
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[Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates: Sand Lizard. Lacerta agilis.]. Munich: J. F. Schreiber, Early 20th-century.
Painted anatomical relief display in wooden frame (240 x 302 mm). Printed paper label to the rear. Housed in the original box with the stamp of the publisher’s archive and two handwritten labels - one giving the name of the display and the other reading “F22”. Also with the original tissue-covered cotton insert to protect the relief. Some minor spots and scuffs to the frame. Slight damage to the paper backing of the frame not affecting the its integrity. Some wear to the box. Excellent condition.
Schmid, Bastian | Vergleichende Anatomie der Wirbeltiere: Rana esculenta. Wasserfrosch
£850.00
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Uncommon, early-20th century anatomical relief of the European frog species Rana esculenta (the common European water frog, or green frog). The publisher’s archive copy, in excellent condition in the original box.
This relief was one of a series produced for schools, Vergleichende Anatomie der Wirbeltiere (Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates), designed by the German behavioural scientist and educational writer Bastian Schmid (1870-1944) for the major educational publisher J. F. Schreiber. The printed paper label on the back gives the names of the frogs’ body parts and also introduces the diagram, “This relief is the second in the series Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates and, like the Fish, is intended to be useful both for theoretical instruction and for biological exercises in higher schools. To the left a female, on the right a male animal, both natural size with the brain and spinal cord enlarged. In the female we see the entire intestines, the respiratory system, the heart with its anterior chambers, the aortic arch...”
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[Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates: Rana esculenta. Water Frog.]. Munich: J. F. Schreiber, Early 20th-century.
Painted anatomical relief display in wooden frame (240 x 302 mm). Printed paper label to the rear. Housed in the original box with the stamp of the publisher’s archive and two handwritten labels - one giving the name of the display and the other reading “F21”. Also with the original tissue-covered cotton insert to protect the relief. A few very minor scratches and spots to the frame. There is some wear to the box and the tissue covering for the cotton padding is torn. Excellent condition.
Schultes, Richard Evans & Albert Hofmann | Plants of the Gods. Origins of Hallucinogenic Use
£500.00
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First edition, first printing of this key reference on hallucinogenic plants by two leaders of the 20th-century psychedelics movement. Copies in fine condition such as this one are particularly uncommon.
Widely considered the founder of modern ethnobotany, Richard Schultes (1915-2001) spent most of his career travelling the Amazon, where he consulted with indigenous people and investigated the plants they used for religious and medicinal purposes. His co-author, Albert Hoffman (1906-2008), was the Swiss chemist who first synthesised LSD and discovered its hallucinogenic effects, and who later isolated psilocybin and psilocin, the primary psychedelic compounds in mushrooms. This volume, copiously illustrated and written for a popular audience, describes the primary species of psychoactive plants and explores their use around the world and throughout history.
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New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979.
Quarto. Original green cloth, title to spine and design to upper board gilt. With the dust jacket. Colour illustrations throughout. A fine copy.
Turner, E. L. | Broadland Birds
£250.00
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First and only edition of this beautifully illustrated work by pioneering bird photographer Emma Louise Turner (1867-1940), which includes the first publication of her award-winning photo of a Great Crested Grebe on its nest. This copy from the library of prominent bird photographer Eric J. Hosking (1909-1991), demonstrating the strong influence that Turner had on later generations in her field. In the introduction to their 1947 book, Masterpieces of Bird Photography, Hosking and co-author Harold Lowes lamented that they were unable to include her image of a water rail because no prints or negatives could be located.
This copy from the library of prominent bird photographer Eric J. Hosking (1909-1991), with his owl bookplate and a blank sheet of his stationery loosely inserted, as well as a Christmas card signed “Cyril, 1934”. This was likely from Cyril Newberry, a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society employed by the London Midlands & Scottish Railway Scientific Research Laboratory, and one of Hosking’s frequent co-authors.
Author E. L. Turner became interested in photography after meeting wildlife photographer Richard Kearton in 1900. She joined the Royal Photographic Society the following year, and by 1904 was giving talks illustrated with her own slides. Turner was particularly interested in birds and travelled throughout the UK and Europe to photograph them, but her main base was in the Norfolk Broads, where she lived for part of each year beginning as early as 1901. This was where, in 1911, she photographed a nestling bittern, proving that the species was breeding in Britain for the first time since 1886. Another highlight of her career was the award of the Royal Photographic Society’s Gold Medal for a photograph of a great crested grebe on its nest, published in Broadland Birds in 1924. In 1904 Turner was elected one of the first fifteen female members of the Linnean Society. In 1909 she became one of the first four honorary female members of the British Ornithologist’s Union, and she was the only woman involved in the 1933 appeal that led to the creation of the British Trust for Ornithology.
The owner of this copy, Eric Hosking, developed his loves for nature and photography at an early age and by 1937 he was first person in Britain to make their living solely in this field. Hosking was intrepid in his pursuit of wild birds. He designed his own hides and made a number of important technical advances, among them the use of the flash in nature photography. His most famous photo is the “technically perfect” shot of a barn owl carrying prey that he captured using an electronic flash in 1948 (Sage, “A Photographer in Hiding”, New Scientist, September 1979). He is widely credited with developing wildlife photography into a mature art form. Hosking was awarded the RSPB’s Gold Medal in 1974, and three years later received an OBE. -
London: Country Life, Ltd., 1924.
Quarto. Original green quarter cloth, green boards, titles to spine gilt and to upper board in white, marbled endpapers. Frontispiece and 25 double-sided plates from photos by the author. Spine very slightly toned, boards with mottled fading as usual for this book, spotting to the contents and edges of the text block.
Turner, E. L. | My Swans the Wylly-Wyllys and Others
£100.00
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First edition, first impression of this charming memoir of a family of mute swans by the bird photographer and conservationist Emma Louise Turner (1867-1940). As Turner explains in the introduction, the swans lived near her houseboat at Hickling Broad and the name she gave them, the “Wylly-Wyllys”, “arose out of the swan cry, ‘Wulla, wulla, wulla,’ repeated very quickly by the fen men when calling the swans”. The text follows the birds through their breeding season and also discusses some of the other species of wild swans in the area, and it is illustrated with 26 of Turner’s own photographs. Copies with the dust jacket are particularly uncommon.
Turner became interested in photography after meeting wildlife photographer Richard Kearton in 1900. She joined the Royal Photographic Society the following year, and by 1904 was giving talks illustrated with her own slides. Turner was particularly interested in birds and travelled throughout the UK and in Europe to photograph them, but her main base of operations was in the Norfolk Broads, where she lived for part of each year beginning as early as 1901. This was where, in 1911, she photographed a nestling bittern, proving that the species was breeding in Britain for the first time since 1886. Another highlight of her career was the award of the Royal Photographic Society’s Gold Medal for a photograph of a great crested grebe on its nest, published in her book Broadland Birds in 1924. In 1904 Turner was elected one of the first fifteen female members of the Linnean Society, in 1909 she became one of the first four honorary female members of the British Ornithologist’s Union, and she was the only woman involved in the 1933 appeal that led to the creation of the British Trust for Ornithology.
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London: Arrowsmith, 1932.
Octavo. Original grey cloth, titles to spine and upper board blocked in green. With the dust jacket. Frontispiece and 15 plates from photographs by the author. Contemporary gift inscriptions to the front free endpaper. Dampstain and loss of size affecting the boards but not the contents, what may be a little light brown mildew on the lower board and corresponding area of the jacket verso. A good copy in the rubbed, spotted, and dulled jacket with a chip and closed tear to the upper panel, a small chip at the head of the spine panel affecting the name of the series but not the title, and some smaller nicks and creases.
Turner, E. L. | Togo, My Squirrel and His Lady-Friend Buda
£150.00
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First edition, first impression of this memoir of a red squirrel saved and reared by the author, the pioneering wildlife photographer and conservationist Emma Louise Turner (1867-1940). This volume was published in the Arrowsmith series The Library of Animal Friends, which also featured books by fellow photographers Frances Pitt and Cherry Kearton, and included another of Turner’s books, My Swans the Wylly-Wyllys. Uncommon in the dust jacket.
Turner became interested in wildlife photography after meeting Richard Kearton in 1900. She joined the Royal Photographic Society the following year, and by 1904 was giving talks illustrated with her own slides. Turner was particularly interested in birds and travelled throughout the UK and in Europe to photograph them, but her main base of operations was in the Norfolk Broads, where she lived for part of each year beginning as early as 1901. This was where, in 1911, she photographed a nestling bittern, proving that the species was breeding in Britain for the first time since 1886. Another highlight of her career was the award of the Royal Photographic Society’s Gold Medal for a photograph of a great crested grebe on its nest, published in her book Broadland Birds in 1924. In 1904 Turner was elected one of the first fifteen female members of the Linnean Society, in 1909 she became one of the first four honorary female members of the British Ornithologist’s Union, and she was the only woman involved in the 1933 appeal that led to the creation of the British Trust for Ornithology.
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....His Successor Tim, and Dinah and the Owls. With 25 Photographs. London: Arrowsmith, 1932.
Square octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine and upper board in black. With the dust jacket. Frontispiece and 15 plates from photographs by the authors and others. Spine very slightly faded, cloth lightly rubbed at the extremities. A very good copy in the rubbed and dulled jacket with some creases, small chips, and short closed tears.
Vos, George H. | Birds and Their Nests and Eggs
£95.00
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A handsomely bound copy of a later impression, originally published in 1907. This lovely little book is "an attempt to describe by camera and pen the recent rambles of two friends, during the months of May and June, in search of birds and their nests for the purpose of photographing them in and near London". It includes a large number of photographs of British birds (usually stuffed specimens) as well as their nests, eggs, and habitats.
- Found in and Near Great Towns. Illustrated by reproduction of photographs of each bird, its nest and eggs, made by the author from Nature, and of incidental scenes. Second edition, revised. London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1910. Octavo (174 x 117 mm). Contemporary tree calf prize binding, spine elaborately gilt in compartments, red morocco label, gilt floral roll to boards, gilt crest of the Terra Nova School to the upper board, marbled endpapers and edges. Prize bookplate. Frontispiece and illustrations throughout from photographs. Very lightly rubbed at extremities, spine a little faded. Excellent condition.
Weishampel, David B., Peter Dodson & Halszka Osmólska | The Dinosauria
£50.00
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First edition, first printing of this key reference work described by reviewers as “monumental” and an “instant classic” (Padian, K. “The Dinosauria”, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, volume 11, number 2, June 1991). Though later printings are commonly available online, it is difficult to find first printings in nice condition.
The Dinosauria was “a comprehensive, authoritative review of current knowledge and theory about the dinosaurs” that reflected the dramatic shifts in palaeontology during the previous two decades (Wilford, review in The New York Times, January 27, 1991). The first edition contains twenty-nine chapters on dinosaur anatomy, physiology, behaviour, and evolution by twenty-three contributors including leading palaeontologists J. H. Ostrom, Jack Horner, Teresa Maryańska, Halszka Osmólska, Michael Benton and Jacques Gauthier. It was so successful that a revised and expanded second edition published in 2004 and remains in print today.
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Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990.
Folio. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt, dinosaur design blocked to upper board in blind, mottled cream endpapers. With the dust jacket. Illustrations and diagrams throughout the text. Ink ownership inscription to the half-title and occasional, neat annotations and underlining within the text. A little finger-soiling to the fore-edge, spotting to the top edge of the text block. A very good copy in the jacket that is lightly rubbed and scuffed with some small marks, creasing, and short closed tears.
Wood, J. G. | Insects at Home
£95.00
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An attractively bound and copiously illustrated work on British insects by the naturalist John George Wood (1827-1889), originally published in 1872.
Wood began his career in the Church of England, but from the early 1880s "was developing a career as a natural historian; his first book, The Illustrated Natural History, was published in 1851. Several more works had followed by 1856, when he began to give occasional lectures on natural history subjects. Wood's appeal as a populariser of natural history was spotted by the publisher George Routledge. Routledge asked him to contribute to a shilling series of handbooks, starting with Common Objects of the Seashore (1857), which enjoyed huge popularity among holiday-makers to the coast. Common Objects of the Country (1858) had an even greater success, and Routledge followed this with a three-volume Illustrated Natural History (1859) by Wood. Many future naturalists were said to have been inspired by reading these books at an early age" (ODNB)
"Wood wrote more than seventy books, some under the pseudonym George Forrest. The majority of them were on natural history, but he also published works on the history of the biblical period and English scenery... and edited titles as diverse as Gilbert White's Natural History of Selbourne and the Boy's Own Magazine. His own natural history titles, such as Our Garden Friends and Foes (1863) and Handy Natural History (1886), were not rigorously scientific but were influential in popularizing the subject. His works on microscopy such as Common Objects of the Microscope (1861) and Nature's Teaching (1877) are still in use by amateur microscopists who hold him in affection" (ODNB).
- ...Being a Popular Account of British Insects, their Structure, Habits, and Transformations. With Upwards of 700 Figures by E. A. Smith and J. B. Zwecker, Engraved by G. Pearson. New Edition. Large octavo (215 x 140 mm). Contemporary tan calf prize binding, spine elaborately gilt in compartments, black morocco label, double lines rules to boards and Hanley Castle Grammar School Crest to upper board gilt, marbled edges and endpapers, turn-overs ruled in blind. Contemporary presentation inscription to the front blank. Colour frontispiece and 20 engraved plates, engravings throughout the text. Boards a little rubbed and scuffed, small gouge from top edge of lower board, blank piece of paper pasted over an inscription on the verso of the front free endpaper, light spotting to contents. A very good copy.
[Rothamsted Experimental Station] | Drawings and Plans of the Lawes Testimonial Laboratory
£250.00
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First and only edition of this uncommon set of lithographs depicting the first purpose-built laboratory at one of the oldest agricultural research institutions in the world, the Rothamsted Experimental Station (now Rothamsted Research), most famous for the Park Grass Experiment, which has been running continuously since 1856. WorldCat locates copies only at Harvard, Illinois, and the Royal Danish Library.
Rothamstead was founded in 1843 by the chemist and entrepreneur John Bennet Lawes (1814-1900) who made significant experiments on fertilizers at his family estate during the 1830s and was awarded a patent for the process of using sulphuric acid to decompose bones so that their calcium phosphate could be taken up by plants. His fertiliser manufacturing plants earned a considerable fortune, which he reinvested in agricultural research.
“Lawes invited Joseph Henry Gilbert (1817–1901) to join him at Rothamsted as chemist, and in practice to be director in charge of the day-to-day management of agricultural experiments. This began a lifelong association, and virtually all the results of the Rothamsted experiments, certainly from the mid-1850s onwards, were published under the joint names of Lawes and Gilbert. The establishment of the Rothamsted Experimental Station also effectively dates from 1843, when the previous superphosphate trials ceased and the continuous recording of the wheat yields from Broadbalk Field began. This was—and continues to be—a ‘control’ plot on which wheat was grown continuously without any manure, and it became the most famous field in the world” (ODNB).
Many in the farming community “appreciated the generous way in which he freely publicized the results and thus provided extremely valuable guidance on which fertilizers, or farmyard manure, and in what amounts, to use on which crops. His growing reputation for liberality and support of objective and disinterested agricultural research helped him to win the patent cases; it moved the farmers, initially of Hertfordshire and then of the country at large, to raise a public testimonial to him in 1853 in recognition of his contributions to the improvement of agriculture. The money was used to build the Testimonial Laboratory at Rothamsted, which replaced the original barn. This was a pretentious and poorly constructed building, which collapsed in 1912” (ODNB).
Despite this, the research station was a resounding success. The work undertaken there “laid the foundations for the systematic study of the effects of fertilizers and nutrients on soils and plant growth... less well-known experiments with farm animals, mainly conducted between 1848 and 1864, initiated controlled research into the effects of different diets on weight-gain in cattle, sheep, and pigs, and, crucially, into measuring the chemical composition and manurial value of the excreta produced by the different diets” (ODNB). All scientific work at the station was undertaken for practical agricultural purposes, and “Rothamsted became so frequently and intensively visited that a marquee with beer and other refreshments for visiting groups was almost permanently in use. This reputation was further enhanced by Lawes's announcement that he would give £100,000 from the proceeds of selling his factories to provide for the long-term future of the Rothamsted station. He redeemed this promise in 1889 by establishing the Lawes Agricultural Trust with that endowment, to which the laboratory, and the several fields of the home farm which were used for the experiments, were assigned on long lease” (ODNB).
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...Rothamsted, Herts. London: F. Dangerfield, 1860.
Oblong folio (370 x 540 mm). 2 tinted lithographic views and 2 lithographic plans, stitched in buff wrappers with lithographed title. Stitching a little loose, adhesive residue along one edge of the wrappers where original cloth backing is lacking, dampstain affecting the upper left corners of the contents but not affecting the images, some nicks and creasing. Very good condition.