London, Paul Jerrard & Son, [1860]. Title page, presentation page, index, ten plates, each with an explanatory leaf (and always both in superb chromolithography, heightened with gum Arabic and finished by hand; the text printed in red and the left margin with large, gilt or chromolithographed floral illustrations), an advertisement leaf, concluding the work, printed in gilt. Contemporary tortoise shell-resembling polished calf. Boards with intricate rich gilt floral borders and rounded edges. Gilt floral endpapers. All bookblock edges gilt.

One of the rarest and most lavishly illustrated books on moths (and flowers), written by the British entomologist - chiefly lepidopterologist - Henry Noel Humphreys (1810-1879), best known, perhaps, for his British Moths and Their Transformations. He "was a British illustrator, naturalist, entomologist, and numismatist. Humphreys, who studied medieval manuscripts in Italy as a young man, became an accomplished scholar in numerous subjects. In addition to his entomological texts, Humphreys wrote works on ancient Greek and Roman coins, archaeology, and the art of writing and printing" (Wikipedia). Humphreys was also the author of a more technical work on moths, titled The Genera of British Moths. The Night-Flyers was not dated, but the advertisement page, with list of other works "recently published" by Jerrard includes one title from 1859. Curiously, another work listed as "just published" most probably was not published at all. Inner joints reinforced, perhaps originally so. Light wear to spine; a few, insignificant spots, otherwise excellent. Neither in Cat. BM(NH), nor in Horn-Schenkling, nor in Nissen, underscoring its rarity.