Recent Memoirs on the Cetacea

Description:

1st British edition, may have been 600, or perhaps 750-800 copies (Curle, 77). Contents: I. On the Greenland Right-Whale (Balaena mysticetus) by D.F. Eschricht; II. On the species of Orca inhabiting the northern Seas by D.F. Eschricht; III. On Pseudorca crassidens by J. Reinhardt; IV. Synopsis of the Cetaceous Mammalia of Scandinavia (Sweden and Norway) by W. Lilljeborg. The first three essays were translated from the Danish, the fourth from Swedish. The authors made the translations, which were supervised by the editor. The plates were reproduced from their original appearance in the 'Transactions of the Royal Danish Society of Sciences' in 1861, but as the lithographic stones and the woodcuts (for the text-figures) had been destroyed, the work was done again, the plates by E.M. Williams and the woodcuts by W. Searson.

This collection of essays, translated into English for the first time from Scandinavian languages, played a key role in advancing and disseminating important knowledge on Cetacea, which otherwise would have remained innaccesible to the greater number of European biologists.

Condition

Fo, rebound in cloth (in antique style), leather title-piece to spine. Some foxing to prelim's and last few plates. A Very good copy.