Biology & Natural History
Nicholls, Elizabeth L. | "The Oldest Known North American Occurence of the Plesiosauria
£45.00
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The rare offprint of the first published paper by palaeontologist Elizaabeth L. Nicholls (1946-2004).
Plesiosaurs were long-necked, marine reptiles that evolved during the Triassic period. They survived the mass extinction that led to the Jurassic, and flourished alongside the dinosaurs during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The partially articulated plesiosaur skeleton described in this paper was discovered in 1970, in the foothills of southwestern Alberta. Collected by a team from the University of Calgary in 1974, it was notable for being the earliest specimen yet recorded in North America, where plesiosaur fossils are more commonly found in later sediments of the Cretaceous. This paper describes the preparation of the fossil up to October, 1975, describing the specimen as appearing to be complete except for the skull, though further work was needed to confirm this.
This paper was published while its author, Elizabeth Nicholls, was a graduate student in palaeontology at the University of Calgary, where she would complete her PhD in 1989. Nicholls became an expert on marine reptiles, working at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Alberta and co-editing the book Ancient Marine Reptiles, published in 1997. She is best known for excavating, from a remote region of Canada, the largest marine reptile ever discovered, a 220-million-year-old ichthyosaur which she named Shonisaurus sikanniensis. Nichollas received a Rolex Award for Enterprise for the excavation in 2000, and in 2017 the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre established the Dr. Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Nicholls Award for Excellence in Palaeontology. She was also honoured by having a genus of extinct sea turtle, Nichollsemy, and a mosasaur, Latoplatecarpus nichollsae, named after her.
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...(Reptilia: Sauropterygia) from the Liassic (Lower Jurassic) Fernie Group, Alberta, Canada." [Offprint from] Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Volume 13, Number 1, pages 185-188. [Ottawa]: National Research Council, Canada, 1976.
4-page offprint. Wire-stitched, original blue wrappers printed in black. Illustrations from black and white photographs within the text. Shelf numbers in black ink to the upper wrapper. Corner of the upper wrapper creased, mild horizontal crease affecting wrappers and contents. Very good condition.
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.
Osmólska, Halszka | Nasal Salt Gland in Dinosaurs
£50.00
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A rare, inscribed offprint by Halszka Osmólska (1930-2008), “one of the most productive dinosaur paleontologists of her generation” and “a giant” in the field (Dodson, ”Polish Women in the Gobi – In Loving Memory of Halszka Osmólska”, American Paleontologist, Vol. 16, No. 3, Fall 2008). Inscribed by the author on the upper cover, “with compliments of H. Osmólska". This paper discusses the purpose of nasal glands in dinosaurs, and whether they were used to excrete salt, as in some bird species.
Osmólska graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1955, and spent most of her career at the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where she served as director between 1984 and 1989 and also as editor of the Institute’s journal, Acta Palaeontologica.
Osmólska was a member of the important Polish-Mongolian expeditions to the Gobi, which were led by Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska between 1965 and 1971 and resulted in the excavation of thirty-five tons of fossils. These excavations “added greatly to our understanding of the diversity of dinosaurs. The material collected in those few years provided material for major portions of the careers of five or six Polish scientists” and “the scientific descriptions of dinosaurs that soon began to flow from the expeditions were almost exclusively written by Polish women, women who up to then had published on Paleozoic invertebrates” (Dodson). Osmólska was one of these specialists, and much of her work on the Mongolian fossils was carried out in partnership with another prominent palaeontologist, Teresa Maryańska (1937-2019).
Osmólska and Maryańska’s first major publication resulting from the Gobi expeditions was the discovery of Deinocheirus mirificus (’unusual horrible hand’), “a fossil collected during the 1965 field season at Altan Ula III in the Nemegt Basin. The find consisted of two nearly complete articulated forelimbs of a theropod of unprecedented size. The forelimbs were 2.4 meters (almost 8 feet) long. The claws on the three-fingered hand measured 323 mm in length (nearly 13 inches). A possible ornithomimosaur, the animal remains enigmatic decades later, pending further discoveries” (Dodson).
Over the course of her career, Osmólska “was responsible for the description of 15 genera of dinosaurs. She was solo author of four of these, and first author of two more. The remarkable team of Maryańska and Osmólska was responsible for naming eight genera. She was honored in the names of a basal archosaur, Osmolskina czatkowicensis (Borsuk-Białynicka & Evans, 2003) and two dinosaurs: the oviraptorosaur Citipati osmolskae (Clark et al., 2001), and most recently (June 2008) Velociraptor osmolskae (Godefroit et al., 2008). She was elected to honorary life membership in the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2003”. Osmólska was also an editor of the The Dinosauria, one of the most important scholarly reference works on dinosaurs, first published in 1990.
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...(Nosowe Gruczoły solne u Dinozaurów). [Offprint from] Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, Volume 24, Number 2, pages 205-215. Warsaw: Zakład Paleobiologii, Polska Akademia Nauk, 1979.
11-page offprint. Original white wrappers printed in black. Skull diagrams within the text. A couple of minor creases and scratches, primarily to the lower wrapper. Excellent condition.
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.
Payne, Nellie M. | “Freezing and Survival of Insects at Low Temperature"
£100.00
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The uncommon offprint of the doctoral thesis of entomologist and agricultural chemist Dr. Nellie Maria de Cottrell Payne (1900 - 1990). WorldCat locates only nine copies, mainly in central European institutions, as well as the University of Minnesota, Cornell, and McGill.
Payne was born in Colorado and obtained her graduate degrees at Kansas State Agricultural College and the University of Minnesota. Her research encompassed “insect and invertebrate cold hardiness, pigments of hydroids, and the physiology and mathematics of population growth... Following the completion of her doctorate, she was appointed as a National Research Foundation Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania until 1927, spending a brief time afterwards at the University of Vienna and University Berlin as a research investigator. She then returned to the University of Minnesota as a lecturer in entomology from 1933 to 1937. Payne also spent numerous summers in the late 1920s and early 1930s at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, publishing primarily on the hibernation and low temperature effects of insects and the physiological effects of parasitoids on their hosts. Of her 36 publications, all as sole author, 33 were a result of her research prior to entering industry. In 1937, she began her career in industry as a research entomologist and zoologist with American Cyanamid. In 1957, she accepted a position as a literature chemist for Velsicol Chemical in Chicago, with whom she remained until 1971... In addition to her active membership in ESA, Payne was also a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Society of Zoologists, and the New York Academy of Science. She served as editor and member staff of Biological Abstracts from 1927–1933, and was elected as member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1921” (Entomological Society of America biography).
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...A thesis submitted to the faculty of the graduate school of the university of Minnesota in partial fulfillment for the degree of doctor of philosophy.” Reprinted from the Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 1, No. 2, April, 1926, pp. 270-282. Baltimore: Quarterly Review of Biology, 1926.
14 page offprint. Original cream wrappers, titles printed to upper wrapper, stapled. Tiny pencil notation to upper wrapper. Wrappers partially toned and a little rubbed and creased, mild creasing of the top corners of the leaves. An excellent copy.
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.
Pickford, Grace E. | Studies on the Digestive Enzymes of Spiders
£50.00
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An uncommon offprint by noted endocrinologist Grace E. Pickford (1902-1986). An attractive and fresh copy, the contents unopened.
Pickford was educated at Cambridge and Yale, and taught at Albertus Magnus College, Yale, and Hiram College. Taking advantage of the Yale Peabody Museum’s extensive natural history collections, she became an authority on cephalopod systematics and in 1951 joined the Galathea deep-sea expedition to study rare octopods in the Indo-Malayan region. During the 1940s she began researching the killifish, and it became the organism “on which she established her outstanding work on fish endocrinology. She became interested in the growth rings on fish scales, and the examined effects of the newly developed growth hormone upon the endocrine system of the fish. In the process, she developed a number of techniques adapted from paediatric research and her earlier work on invertebrates. Pickford published a seminal monograph, The Physiology of the Pituitary Gland of Fishes (1957), which soon became the bible for scientists working on the endocrinology of lower vertebrates” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1021).
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...[published in] Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. Volume 35, December 1942, Pages 33-72. New Haven, CT: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Yale University Press, 1942.
Octavo. Original grey wrappers printed in black. Contents unopened. Two mild, vertical creases to the upper wrapper, just a little faint toning along the edges of the wrappers. Excellent condition.
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.
Ross, Ronald, et al. | The Prevention of Malaria
£500.00
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First edition of this significant work by the doctor who identified the transmission pathway of malaria.
Ronald Ross (1857-1932) was a physician in the Indian Medical Service who became interested in malaria during the 1890s. He was mentored by Patrick Manson, the leading British specialist in tropical diseases, and set out to prove Manson’s mosquito hypothesis. Ross’s first breakthrough was proving that the parasite in question could be transmitted to mosquito stomachs from infected humans, and he was then able to track the entire infection cycle in birds using avian malaria. It was the Italian Giovanni Battista Grassi who conclusively demonstrated the cycle in humans shortly thereafter.
During the resulting debates on prevention, Ross “strongly favoured vector control as the most cost-efficient means to prevent the disease, and he developed a sophisticated mathematical model of malaria epidemiology to show that it was not necessary to eradicate all Anophelines in a particular area to effect a significant reduction in malaria incidence. Ross's model was rooted in the mathematics of probability (what he called a theory of happenings), and although it was later recognized as a basis of mathematical epidemiology it was poorly appreciated in Ross's lifetime and made relatively little impact” (ODNB). Ross elaborated on his mathematical ideas in The Prevention of Malaria, which contained “chapters by different experts on malaria control in many malarious countries, but the bulk of the monograph contained Ross's own reconstruction of the contributions made by various individuals to the discovery of the transmission of malaria by Anopheles mosquitoes” (ODNB). The volume also contains sections on the history of malaria and the progress and symptoms of the disease.
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...With Many Illustrations. London: John Murray, 1910.
Large octavo. Original red cloth, titles to spine and upper board gilt, borders blocked in blind. 30 plates of which 3 are folding, tables and graphs within the text. 4 leaves of ads at rear. Ink stamps of the John Holt Company, Liverpool to the front free endpaper, pages 95, 241, 273, 289, and 481 as well as two of the folding plates. Cloth a little rubbed at the extremities, spotting to the edges of the text block and the early and late leaves, and scattered spotting throughout the contents. Very good condition.
Rothschild, Miriam & Theresa Clay | Fleas, Flukes and Cuckoos
£60.00
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First edition, first impression of this classic by a leading British parasitologist.
Miriam Rothschild (1908-2005) was a member of the prominent banking family and was introduced to zoology by her father, an amateur naturalist, and her physician uncle. Though Rothschild had only a limited formal education, she was intellectually self-directed and was recommended for study at the Naples Biological Station, where she “developed a strong interest in parasitology, noting that the molluscs with which she was working were infected with flatworms” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1128). She then went to the Biological Station at Plymouth where she continued researching parasites and their hosts until her laboratory was bombed during the Second World War.
During the war Rothschild opened her childhood home to refugees and worked with Alan Turing on the Enigma project. “In addition to her active war work, she continued with her natural history investigations, cataloguing her father’s collections and studying human and animal parasites, especially fleas. She studied flea reproduction, their host preferences, and the mechanics of flea leaping. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Tadeus reichstein, she demonstrated the manner in which the monarch caterpillar’s diet of milkweed plants protects it from birds and other predators” (Ogilvie). Rothschild published more than three hundred scientific articles in addition to several successful popular works, and 2,000 of her microscope slides are now part of the Natural History Museum collections.
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...A Study of Bird Parasites. With 90 Black and White Photographs, 4 Maps & 22 Drawings. London: Collins, 1952.
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. 20 plates, illustrations within the text. Cloth very slightly faded along the edges of the boards, gilt spine titles dulled, light partial toning of the free endpapers. A very good copy in the rubbed and dulled jacket with two closed tears and associated creasing at the top of the upper panel, as well as a few other small nicks and a crease along the fold of the upper flap.
Scharrer, Berta | An Evolutionary Interpretation of the Phenomenon of Neurosecretion
£150.00
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First and only edition of this uncommon talk by one of the giants of neuroscience.
“There are very few scientists whose discoveries have marked the advent of a new discipline. Berta Scharrer was one of these pioneers. Her scientific career was crowned with great success. The concept of neurosecretion (the storage, synthesis and release of hormones from neurons) developed by Ernst and Berta Scharrer between 1928 and 1937 formed the foundation for contemporary neuroendocrinology... Today we know that secretory nerve cells are widely distributed over the whole nervous system” and “serve to maintain the organism and preserve the species” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1158).
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...Forty-Seventh James Arthur Lecture on the Evolution of the Human Brain. New York: The American Museum of Natural History, 1977.
17-page pamphlet. Original cream wrappers printed in black, wire-stitched. Wrappers very lightly toned around the edges. An excellent copy.
Scharrer, Ernst & Berta | Neuroendocrinology.
£165.00
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First edition, first printing and a very attractive copy of this “seminal, comprehensive monograph” by the founders of neuroendocrinology (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1158). From the library of prominent American psychologist Henry Guze, with his ownership inscription on the front endpapers.
“There are very few scientists whose discoveries have marked the advent of a new discipline. Berta Scharrer was one of these pioneers. Her scientific career was crowned with great success. The concept of neurosecretion (the storage, synthesis and release of hormones from neurons) developed by Ernst and Berta Scharrer between 1928 and 1937 formed the foundation for contemporary neuroendocrinology... Today we know that secretory nerve cells are widely distributed over the whole nervous system” and “serve to maintain the organism and preserve the species” (Ogilvie). Scharrer was the recipient of honorary degrees from eleven institutions, including Harvard, and “among her numerous medals and prizes were the Kraepelin Gold Medal of the Max Planck Society, the Schleiden Mdal of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and the National Medal of the Science of the United States of America” (Ogilvie).
The previous owner of this copy, Henry Guze, “specialized in psychosomatic illness, schizophrenia and disorders of sexual behavior. He was a founder of The American Academy of Psychotherapists and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis and co‐founder and former president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex” (New York Times obituary, July 4, 1970).
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New York & London: Columbia University Press, 1963.
Octavo. Original teal cloth, title to spine in gilt on light blue ground, publisher’s logo to upper board in blind. With the dust jacket. 3 plates, illustrations and diagrams within the text. Ownership inscriptions of Henry Guze to the front endpapers. An excellent copy in the jacket that is lightly rubbed and faded along the spine panel, with two short closed tears to the upper panel and light dampstain affecting the lower panel.
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.
Seibert, Florence B. | Bacteria in Tumors.
£350.00
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Presentation copy of a rare offprint by the biochemist who was the first to produce purified tuberculin for use in studying and treating tuberculosis. Inscribed by the author on the upper wrapper, “Best wishes, Florence B. Seibert”. In this research paper Seibert investigates the presence of bacteria in tumors and the best methods for isolating and identifying them.
Biochemist Florence Seibert (1897-1991) was a productive and highly regarded scientist who worked in a number of areas and received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship. As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago during the early 1920s she made her first breakthrough, “a method of eliminating bacterial contamination that was known to occur during the creation of solutions meant for vaccinations and injections. Patients could experience sudden fevers or illness during or after an injection or intravenous treatment. Such afflictions, Seibert discovered, were most often caused by bacterial contamination of the distilled water used to make the solutions. She was able to eliminate this contamination using a special apparatus and procedure she created for this purpose. This would be a great boon later not only for administering drugs but also for making blood transfusions safer during surgery” (Lemelson-MIT biography).
But Seibert’s most significant work was on tuberculosis, particularly her improvements to Robert Koch’s skin test for the infection. “Koch’s method was notoriously inaccurate, for the evaporated solution used in the test contained numerous impurities. Even people with a serious case of tuberculosis sometimes failed to get a positive test. Seibert worked for ten years on methods of isolating pure tuberculin by filtration, by using a guncotton membrane of a specific thickness. The result was a creamy white powder which was the purified protein from the tuberculosis bacillus, known as PPD. Never patenting the process (which would have made her rich), she furnished the National Tuberculosis Association with a large quantity of pure tuberculin” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1173).
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...Reprinted from Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences Series II, Volume 34, No. 6, Pages 504-533. June 1972. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1972.
Octavo. 32-page offprint, wire-stitched, original white wrappers printed in black. Black and white illustrations from photomicrographs throughout. Orange ink and pencil underlining to two sentences on page 531. Yellow dampstain to the upper wrapper, lighter dampstain affecting the tail of the spine and edges of the wrappers. Minor creasing along the wrapper edges. A very good copy.
Smith, Annie Lorrain | A Handbook of the British Lichens
£100.00
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First edition, first impression and a lovely copy in exceptional condition.
Smith (1854-1937) “spent her entire career as a volunteer at the British Museum of Natural History... for although she was trained in botany by Dr. Scott at the Royal College of Sciences, she was unable to choose whether to become a professional or remain an amateur... Since women were not admitted to the museum staff, she had no choice but to work for free if she wanted to work at all. She volunteered to remount a collection of recently purchased microscopical slides, and through this experience was able to prepare an exhibit of microfungi for the public gallery. From this time on she was connected with the Cryptogamic Herbarium as an unofficial worker almost continuously up to the time of her eightieth birthday... Although her earliest work was on seaweeds, she soon became fascinated with the fungi. She joined the British Mycological Society and contributed notes on new records and other papers to the Society’s Transactions. After James Crombie, who was producing a monograph on British lichens, died in 1906, Smith undertook the completion of the work. After she prepared the second volume, she reworked the first... this two-volume set became a standard work. She also prepared a small Handbook in 1921 and in the same year produced her encyclopaedic volume on lichens, which was one of the Cambridge Botanical Handbooks” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1202).
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...With Ninety Figures in the Text. London: printed by order of the trustees of the British Museum, sold by B. Quaritch and at the British Museum (Natural History), 1921.
Octavo. Original green cloth over limp boards, titles to spine and British Museum of Natural History roundel to the upper board gilt, double rules to boards blocked in blind. Steel engravings throughout the text. Minor production flaw in the cloth of the upper board, very light rubbing at the tips. An excellent, fresh copy.
Smith, Greene | Catalogue of Birds, Eggs and Nests
£250.00
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First edition of this uncommon catalogue of the Greene Smith Museum of birds and their nests and eggs.
Greene Smith (1841-1880) was the son of abolitionist Gerrit Smith and a keen sportsman, amateur taxidermist, and professor of ornithology at Cornell. He founded his museum in Peteroboro, New York in 1863 to house the thousands of specimens of birds, eggs, and nests he had collected – nicknamed the Bird House, it was three stories tall and fitted out with luxuries such as central heating, a mahogany staircase, and marble fixtures, and the collection of hummingbirds alone was estimated to be worth $75,000. Smith died in 1886 while attempting to complete a second, annotated version, of the museum catalogue. Mot of his specimens went to the collections at Cornell, Harvard and Colgate University. The present volume lists all the specimens under their common and scientific names and indicates where they were collected, their sex, and age (adult, young, or young with down).
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Museum Greene Smith, Peterboro, N. Y. July 11, 1880. Morrisville, NY: printed at the Madison Observer Office, 1881.
Tall octavo. Original brown cloth, titles to upper boar gilt, triple fillets blocked in blind, edges dyed red. White abrasion and speckled dampstain to the upper board, cloth a little rubbed at the extremities with some small nicks at the edges of the boards, contents very faintly toned. A very good copy.
Taylor, Clara Mae | Food Values in Shares and Weights
£35.00
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Third printing, published the year after the first. With the ownership inscription, pencilled notes, and December 1944 report card of Eva Bernice Simmons, a student at the North Carolina College for Negroes, now North Carolina Central University.
Author Clara Mae Taylor (1989-?) attended Columbia University Teacher’s College and then taught at the Rhode Island Teacher’s College and at her alma mater. She earned her PhD in nutrition science at age forty after spending a year in research at Oxford. “During World War II, Taylor directed a research project under the Department of Agriculture that investigated energy metabolism in children. She also studied metabolism in women at different ages. Her animal experiments on white rats and guinea pigs included dietary studies, an investigation of different levels of ascorbic acid on reproduction, and studies on lactation and survival rates. During the war and the immediate post-war period, she served as a nutritional consultant to two popular women’s magazines, Woman’s Home Companion and Parents Magazine” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1269).
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New York: The Macmillan Company, 1943.
Tall quarto. Original grey cloth, titles to spine and upper board in black. Colour frontispiece. Contemporary inked ownership inscription to the front free endpaper, pencilled notes in the same hand to the front pastedown. Cloth rubbed and with a few small marks and spots, spine and edge of upper board tanned, edges of contents spotted. A very good copy.
Tonelli, Giorgio | La Pensée Philosophique de Maupertuis
£50.00
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First edition, first impression. A very attractive copy in fresh condition.
This important study analyses the philosophical milieu and influences of Maupertuis, “one of the greatest scientists and original thinkers of the 18th century. His contributions to mathematics (the Principle of Least Action), and his refutation of preformationist theories alone would have justified his pre-eminence. However, of particular interest was his study and interpretation of pedigrees of genetic traits, the application of the concept of probability to genetic problems, the introducing of experimental breeding as a means of studying the transmission of inherited traits in animals, and his proposed theories of inheritance, all ideas which were far ahead of their time” (Emery, “Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis )1698-1759)”, Journal of Medical Genetics 25, 1988).
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...son Milieu et ses Sources. Édition Posthume par Claudio Cesa. Hildesheim, Zürich & New York: Georg Olms, 1987.
Quarto. Original tan and white boards with text in black and white. Minor bump to the lower corner. Excellent condition.
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. | Every Garden a Bird Sanctuary
£75.00
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Second impression, published the year after the first. A rare guide to gardening and managing outdoor spaces for wild birds, by the pioneering bird photographer and conservationist Emma Louise Turner.
The prominent American ornithologist Margaret Morse Nice (1883-1974) reviewed this volume for Bird Banding magazine in July, 1936, writing that, “The title of this book is an inspiration in itself. In this sane, readable little volume, Miss Turner, well-known bird photographer and student of life-history of birds, gives excellent advice, not only for garden sanctuaries, but also for woodland and marsh sanctuaries. She points out the ruthless advance of present-day civilization against the few remnants of wild life”.
Turner (1867-1940) 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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...With Plates and Drawings. London: H. F. & G. Witherby, Ltd., 1935.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine in white. With the dust jacket. Frontispiece and 7 plates from photographs by the author. Plate II detached and loosely inserted. Spine rolled and partially faded, shallow dents affecting the upper board and spine, edges of the boards a little rubbed and faded, spotting to contents and edges of text block. A very good copy in the rubbed and nicked jacket with chips from the head and tail of the tanned spine panel and ink gift inscription to the upper panel.
Turner, E. L. | Every Garden a Bird Sanctuary
£75.00
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First edition, first impression. A rare guide to gardening and managing outdoor spaces for wild birds, by the pioneering wildlife photographer and conservationist Emma Louise Turner.
The prominent American ornithologist Margaret Morse Nice (1883-1974) reviewed this volume for the journal Bird Banding in July, 1936, writing that, “The title of this book is an inspiration in itself. In this sane, readable little volume, Miss Turner, well-known bird photographer and student of life-history of birds, gives excellent advice, not only for garden sanctuaries, but also for woodland and marsh sanctuaries. She points out the ruthless advance of present-day civilization against the few remnants of wild life”.
Emma Louise Turner (1867-1940) 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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...With Plates and Drawings. London: H. F. & G. Witherby, Ltd., 1935.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine in white. Frontispiece and 7 plates from photographs by the author. Ownership signature of E. H. Stevenson to the title. Spine tanned and rolled, some small marks and bumps to the cloth, text block shaken and with spotting on the edges, light offsetting to the title. Very good condition.
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.
Von Neumann, John | Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata
£1,200.00
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First edition of this important work on self-reproduction in machines and life forms, scare in the dust jacket.
Von Neumann became interested in the abilities of computers to self-reproduce during his work on the Institute for Advanced Studies computer project - noting that, since a Turing machine can make exact copies of any readable sequence, it can copy itself. He hoped to formulate a theory of self-reproduction that would be general enough to explain and predict self-reproduction in both machines and living things. “Viewing the logic of self-replication and self-reproduction through the lens of formal logic and and self-referential systems, von Neumann applied the results of Gödel and Turing to the foundations of biology” with his conjectures hitting “the heart of the probability or improbability of the origin of life” (Dyson, Turing’s Cathedral, pp. 283-285).
Together with Stanislaw Ulam, von Neumann attempted to develop these ideas for publication, but they remained remained unfinished at his death. “The incomplete manuscript, including a lengthy introduction based on a series of five lectures given by von Neumann at the University of Illinois in 1949, was eventually assembled, with careful editing by Arthur Burks, and published as Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata almost ten years after von Neumann’s death... Our understanding of self-reproduction in biology, and our development of self-reproducing technology, proceeded almost exactly as the proposed theory described” (Dyson, p. 286).
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Edited and Compiled by Arthur W. Banks. Urbana & London: University of Illinois Press, 1966.
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine and upper board in black. With the dust jacket. Contemporary ownership signature in blue ink to the front free endpaper. An excellent, fresh copy in the lightly rubbed jacket that is tanned, particularly along the spine panel, and has some nicks and short splits at the edges.
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.
Waddington, G. & Monica Taylor | Principles of Biology
£75.00
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The rare first edition of this well-regarded introductory biology textbook co-authored by entomologist Monica Taylor (1877-?).
“Monica Taylor joined the Order of Notre Dame as a nun when she was twenty-three. She went on to study science at the University of London and the University of Glasgow and taught for almost forty years in the School of Education in Glasgow with occasional stints as a visiting lecturer in Belgium and the United States. She published a popular biology textbook with the distinguished biologist C. H. Waddington in the 1930s. In her later life she was recognized with a medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh and served as vice-president of the Royal Society of Glasgow. the UNiversity of Glasgow awarded her an honorary degree in 1973. Taylor’s scientific research included an analysis of the development of the insect Symbrachus, a study of the chromosome complex of Culex pipens. She also studied amoeba and polypoidy and the connection to evolution, On the technical side, she developed laboratory growth materials for protozoa.” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 1272.)
Though Ogilvie states that C. H. Wadington was the co-author of this volume, the title page gives the name as “G. Waddington”. G. was not one of the well-known Waddington’s initials, and he was never a professor at either Heythrop or Stonyhurst College as described of the author on the title page. The identity of G. Waddington remains unclear.
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London: John Murray, 1935.
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine and upper board in black, double line border and publisher’s monogram to upper board in black. Single leaf publisher’s ads at rear. Diagrams and black and white illustrations from photos throughout. Pencilled ownership signature to the front free endpaper. Spine a little rolled, cloth rubbed with some wear at the extremities, particularly the head of the spine where the cloth has pulled back a little, some spotting and dulling of the cloth, slight musty smell when fanning the leaves but contents clean. A very good copy.
Watson, Hewett Cottrell | Topographical Botany
£400.00
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First edition, presentation set inscribed by the author on each title, “Mary Edmonds from the Author, H. C. W. 1873” and “Mary Edmonds from the Author, June 24th 1874”.
Inspired by the work of Alexander von Humboldt, Hewett Cottrell Watson (1804-1881) became Victorian Britain’s leading phytogeographer, and his research contributed to Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. “Watson's major botanical endeavour was producing several versions of a work first entitled Outlines of the Geographical Distribution of British Plants (1832); it reached its most extensive form as Cybele Britannica, or, British Plants, and their Geographical Relations (4 vols., 1847–59). Volume four contains his most detailed phytogeographical conclusions. After publishing several supplements, he summarized his data in Topographical Botany: being Local and Personal Records towards shewing the Distribution of British Plants (2 vols., 1873–4). He was working on a second edition of it when he died; it was completed by John G. Baker and William W. Newbould (1883)” (ODNB). Watson was also responsible for the foundation of botanical exchange clubs and the publication of the London Catalogue of British Plants, which amassed the contributions of thousands of amateur and professional botanists across Britain.
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...Being Local and Personal Records Towards Shewing the Distribution of British Plants Traced Through the 112 Counties and Vice-Counties of England and Scotland. Thames Ditton: for private distribution, 1873 & 74.
2 volumes, octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine and upper board gilt, yellow coated endpapers. Map. Corners and edges bumped, dampstains to both lower boards, small area of dampstain to edge of upper board of volume II, occasional light spotting to contents and edges of text block of volume II. A very good set.
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.
Westell, W. Percival | British Mammals
£15.00
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A charming, illustrated children's book by the prolific natural history author William Percival Westell (1874-1943).
Westell was a self-educated naturalist who served as the curator of the Lechworth Museum for three decades and “strove to make his publications accessible to all by eschewing technical language” (Moore, “William Percival Westell”, Archives of Natural History, volume 42, issues 2). It is estimated that he sold around half a million copies of his many books, published by an astonishing 37 different publishers (Moore).
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...Illustrated by Doris Meyer. London: Chapman & Dodd, Ltd., [1920s].
Quarto. Original grey cloth blocked in dark blue with illustrations of various animals. Colour frontispiece and 1 plate, illustrations throughout the text. Prize bookplate of the Aldeborough School dated 1927, bookseller’s ticket of W. E. Harrison of Ipswich. Spine tanned and rolled, cloth spotted and a little worn at the extremities, light spotting to contents and edges of text block, damage to the edges of pages 105-112 caused by an attempt to open the leaves which were accidentally left closed during production, small pieces of excess paper on the edges of pages 123 and 127. Very good condition.
Williams, Paige | The Dinosaur Artist
£175.00
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First edition, first printing. Inscribed by the author on the title, “Paige Williams, Tucson Book festival, March 2, 2019”.
This best-selling true-crime tale centers on the remarkable 2013 legal case The United States of America v. One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skeleton, in which the court decided the fate of a skeleton smuggled to the US from Mongolia by fossil dealer Eric Prokopi. Author Paige Williams, of the New Yorker, explores important questions that have surrounded the practice of palaeontology since its earliest days — who gets credit for, and benefits from, fossil discoveries, and is it ever ethical to sell fossils on the open market? An important contribution to the public’s understanding of the history and ethics of fossil hunting.
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...The Dinosaur Artist. Obsession, Betrayal and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy. New York: Hachette, 2018.
Octavo. Original white boards, titles to spine in copper. With the dust jacket. Corners very slightly bumped. An excellent copy in the fresh jacket with a little rubbing at the tips.
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.
Wulf, Andrea | (Uncorrected Proof Copy) The Invention of Nature
£50.00
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Uncorrected proof copy of the best-seller that reintroduced naturalist Alexander von Humboldt to the English-speaking world and explored his contributions to the ideas of figures such as Thoreau, Darwin, and Muir. The Invention of Nature was awarded the Royal Society’s Insight Investment Science Book Prize in 2016. This uncorrected proof is marked “not for sale or quotation” and contains blank pages in place of the index.
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...The Adventures of Alexander Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science. London: John Murray, 2015. Perfect bound. Original wrappers printed in colour. Wrappers a little rubbed, a few light marks to the lower cover. Very good condition.
[Art Nouveau] | Art Nouveau Floral Desk Seal
£500.00
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A lovely Art Nouveau desk seal in carved boxwood depicting a bouquet of flowers.
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Carved boxwood desk seal, circa 1900. 850 x 350mm. No monogram or device to the base. A couple of very minor nicks in the wood, slight wear at the base. Excellent condition.
[Blanchard] Cobb, Frieda | A Case of Mendelian Inheritance Complicated by Heterogametism
£100.00
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The uncommon offprint of the dissertation of geneticist and scientific administrator Frieda Blanchard, née Cobb (1889-1977), the first scientist to demonstrate Mendelian inheritance in a reptile.
Cobb’s father, Nathan Augustus Cobb, was a pioneering plant pathologist who involved his daughters in his work, particularly in their home laboratory. “Frieda developed an enthusiasm for science and a love for plants and animals. In Hawaii, where her father studied the diseases of sugar cane, Frieda worked in the laboratory he organised” (Ogilvie p. 141). She attended Radcliffe College and completed her bachelor’s at the University of Illinois in 1916.
“In the fall of 1916, after a summer helping her father with nematode research at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Frieda Cobb moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the request of Harley Harris Bartlett, director of the University of Michigan Botanical Gardens, and a pioneer in plant genetics. There she became not only his graduate student but also, in 1919, the assistant director of the gardens. Together, Bartlett and Cobb developed the gardens as a major center for Oenothera (evening primrose) research as they tried to solve some of the puzzles in the newly developing science of genetics. Cobb earned her doctorate in 1920 with a study of Mendelian inheritance in certain strains of Oenothera. Because Bartlett was often away from Ann Arbour, Cobb became the active administrator of the gardens, maintaining facilities for scientific research and an atmosphere conducive to such research. That arrangement continued until the 1950s when both retired” (Ogilvie, p. 141).
Cobb married the herpetologist Frank N. Blanchard in 1922, and they worked together on the garter snake, with Frieda concentrating on genetics. “Their work, carried on over many years, provided the first demonstration of Mendelian inheritance in a reptile” and when Frank died in 1937, Frieda “continued their work as well as her other research and raised their three children” (Ogilvie. p. 141).
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...and Mutation in Oenothera Pratincola. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. [Offprint from] Genetics Vol. 6, No. 1, January 1921. Genetics, 1921.
44 page offprint. Original grey wrappers printed in black, hidden staples. Contemporary pencilled note to the upper wrapper. Ink stamp of the University of Bonn on the verso of the title. Wrappers very lightly rubbed and toned, with small discoloured spots from the staples. Excellent condition.
[Chargaff, Erwin] Schrader, Franz | Mitosis. The Movements of Chromosomes in Cell Division
£275.00
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Third printing of this influential work, originally published in 1944. From the library of molecular biologist Erwin Chargaff (1905-2002), with this ownership signature in ink on the front free endpaper.
Chargaff’s work elucidated key concepts about DNA and provided part of the groundwork for Watson and Crick’s discovery of its structure. Chargaff’s rules, as they are now known, state that the quantities of the four nucleotides are always linked - guanine matching that of cytosine and adenine with thiamine, and that the relative amounts of each vary from species to species. These observations strongly hinted that the nucleotides carried the genetic information (rather than the protein components, as had been thought previously), and, most importantly, that DNA could have a double structure - the key to the cell’s ability to both read and replicate it. “Chargaff discussed the results at a tetchy meeting with Watson and Crick in May 1952, and later told Horace Judson, the historian of the discovery of DNA, that ‘they impressed me by their extreme ignorance’” (Guardian obituary). Chargaff’s contributions, along with those of Rosalind Franklin, were ignored by the Nobel Prize committee, leading to his bitterness in later life.
The present text is a significant in our understanding of the physical processes involved in cell division. Franz Schrader (1891-1962) was a Columbia University cytologist who, in 1932, began studying spindles, the structures in cells that form during cell division and pull apart the copied chromosomes. Mitosis “placed what was known of these subjects under searching analysis and offered new directions for research on chromosomal movements” (Cooper, Franz Schrader: A Biographical Memoir, National Academy of Sciences, 1993). An excellent association.
- New York, Morningside: Columbia University Press, 1949. Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. 1 double-sided plate, illustrations within the text. Very lightly rubbed at the tips, small blue sink spots on the upper edge of the text block. Excellent condition.
[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.