Zoological Society of London
Transactions of the Zoological Society of London. Volume XVI.
London, Longmans, Green, and Co., for the Society, [1901]-1903. Large 4to (31.7 x 25.0 cm). 427 pp.; 38 plates, of which several in fine chromolithography. Contemporary blue half calf over marbled boards. Spine with five raised bands and gilt title.
Rare complete, single volume, with eight fine papers on various zoological topics, including Sir Edwin Ray Lankester on the recently discovered okapi (introducing a new genus, Okapia), Beddard on the enigmatic pigmy whale; Howes and Swinnerton on the mysterious New Zealand Tuatara ‘lizard’; Boulenger on fishes of Lake Tanganyika, and Budget on the development of West African fish; Degen on the origin of feathering, and two more. Most are nicely illustrated, in particular the okapi, pigmy whale (skeleton, on a very large plate) and both fish papers. Provenance: bookplate of the British zoologist Richard Assheton (1863-1915), dated 1915. Tiny label of a Cambridge bookbinder on the front pastedown; leather dry, a bit flaking at the board edges and spine ends. A few plates with light, mostly marginal foxing (much less so than usual), otherwise a very good, complete copy. Cat. BM(NH) p. 2397; Cat. BM(NH) Supplement J-O, p. 605 (for Lankester); Dean I, p. 165 (for Boulenger).