Lot Details
Lot 156
[DODO] STRICKLAND, H.E. and MELVILLE, A.G.. The Dodo and its Kindred; Or The History, Affinities, and Osteology of the Dodo, Solitaire, and Other Extinct Birds of the Islands Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon.
London: Reeve, Benham, and Reeve, 1848. First edition. Publisher's pale blue cloth, gilt with a design of a dodo. 12 1/2 x 10 inches (31.5 x 25 cm); viii, 142 pp., with 12 lithographic plates and 5 anastatically-printed plates, 1 hand colored and 1 folding. Some soiling to covers, very lightly worn; internally some scattered pale foxing, mostly to (and opposite) the plates, but in all a very sound copy. Bookplate of the great naturalist (and collector of natural history books) Sir William Jardine and his daughter Catherine Dorcas Maule Jardine, with the admonition "Borrow Bravely. Keep Carefully. Peruse Patiently. Return Righteously".
Hugh Strickland, a the eminent Victorian geologist, was a friend of Charles Darwin. His co-author, Alexander Gordon Melville, was an Irish comparative anatomist. The two met at Oxford, and it was there that Strickland and Melville began work on their joint effort. The book's publication sparked a search for fossil evidence of the dodo on Mauritius, the aim of which was to supplement the very few specimens available to nineteenth-century scientists. Wood, p 585; Zimmer, p 606; Anker 490; Fine Bird Books, p 145; Nissen, IVB 900.
C The Collection of Jay I. Kislak sold to benefit the Kislak Family Foundation
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