The Natural History of Humming-Birds.

2 Vols., 8vo, green embossed cloth with decorative gilt on covers, and gilt lettering on spines, portrait frontispiece, preliminary titles with colored illustrations, plus 64 hand colored plates, tissue guards present, xv, 25-191, 13; viii, 192, 13 pp. Some wear and fraying to spine heads and joints, top hinge a bit cracked, one page uncut, some toning and aging, a little foxing in preliminary pages, occasional finger soiling to a few plates, but coloring is bright and clean. Title page indicates there should be 65 plates, but this set, like all the others that have been listed or come to auction in recent years, has 64 plates. A nice set overall. Sir William Jardine (1800-1874) was born in Edinburgh was a well known naturalist and sportsman. He studied anatomy, geology, ornithology, botany, and published his first work on ornithology in 1827-35 with John P.J. Selby. In the early 1830s he began to publish installments of his highly successful Naturalist's Library. The present work is probably less common than some of his other books, and includes 64 hand colored plates. Each plate comes with some descriptive text. The OCLC locates nine copies of this edition. DNB. OCLC.