Details
FORSTER, JOHANN REINHOLD. A Catalogue of the Animals of North America. Containing an Enumeration of the known Quadrupeds, Birds, Reptiles, Fish, Insects, Crustaceous and Testaceous Animals; many of which are New, and never described before... London: B. White 1771.
8vo, 202 x123 mm. (8 x 4 7/8in.), 43 pp., maroon half morocco, stab-holes through gutters, frontispiece supplied from another copy? (no stab-holes visible), frontispiece offset to title.
FIRST EDITION, engraved frontispiece of a sparrow hawk by R. Murray after M. Griffith, 9 pp. "Short Directions" to collecting and preserving zoological and botanical specimens.
The classified catalogue names several previously unknown species, based on Forster's own observations as well as those of Mark Catesby and of an unnamed fellow naturalist. Among the zoological classes mentioned in the title, 302 species of birds and 350 species of insects are listed. "A large number of binomial names are used, some of them for the first time, but since there are no descriptions, the names are here nomina nuda"--Ayer/Zimmer, I:229 (1882 Willughby Society reprint). RARE: the last copy to appear at auction was sold at Parke-Bernet on 6 December 1938.
McGill/Wood, p. 346 ("excessively rare"); Sabin 25133.
Provenance:
Dr. Evan Morton Evans (1870-1955)
Daniel Webster Evans (1907-1966).
8vo, 202 x123 mm. (8 x 4 7/8in.), 43 pp., maroon half morocco, stab-holes through gutters, frontispiece supplied from another copy? (no stab-holes visible), frontispiece offset to title.
FIRST EDITION, engraved frontispiece of a sparrow hawk by R. Murray after M. Griffith, 9 pp. "Short Directions" to collecting and preserving zoological and botanical specimens.
The classified catalogue names several previously unknown species, based on Forster's own observations as well as those of Mark Catesby and of an unnamed fellow naturalist. Among the zoological classes mentioned in the title, 302 species of birds and 350 species of insects are listed. "A large number of binomial names are used, some of them for the first time, but since there are no descriptions, the names are here nomina nuda"--Ayer/Zimmer, I:229 (1882 Willughby Society reprint). RARE: the last copy to appear at auction was sold at Parke-Bernet on 6 December 1938.
McGill/Wood, p. 346 ("excessively rare"); Sabin 25133.
Provenance:
Dr. Evan Morton Evans (1870-1955)
Daniel Webster Evans (1907-1966).