London, The author, 1915. Large 4to (30.4 x 25.2 cm). Title page, viii, 149 pp.; photogravure portrait of the author, and his printed signature; photogravure of Osbert Salvin, with his signature, printed; eight double-sized maps, of which seven printed in colour. Publisher's dark blue buckram with gilt title on the spine.

The concluding volume - with fine, detailed maps - from one of the largest zoological and botanical surveys ever, the Biologia Centrali-Americana being a series of monographs of the natural history of Mexico and Central America, privately issued in 215 parts from 1879 to 1915 by the editors, the British entomologist (chiefly lepidopterologist) and ornithologist Frederick DuCane Godman (1834-1919) and the British ornithologist Osbert Salvin (1835-1898), who both worked for the British Museum (Natural History) in London. Of this immense series, all parts are scarce, if not rare, even in institutional libraries, and this concluding part is no exception. The area covered reaches from the Rio Colorado and United States-Mexico border, south to the Panama-Columbia border, excluding Baja California, but often contains distribution records from north and south of the regions covered. This whole work is still fundamental for the study of Neotropical animals, because it contains almost all that was known of the biodiversity of Mexico and Central America at the time of its publication. This volume includes, e.g., a list of completed volumes, an analysis and summary of their contents, remarks on the origin and other aspects of the fauna, including parts on mammals, arachnids, and other arthropods by R. I. Pocock; on reptiles, amphibians, and fish, by C. T. Regan, and on the flora by W. B. Helmsley (three of the main contributors). The whole series has 63 volumes with 1,677 lithograph plates (more than 900 of which are in colour) depicting 18,587 subjects. In total, 50,263 species are treated, of which 19,263 are described as new. The bird section alone deals with 1,413 species representing 78 families and 539 genera (Anker). Very light staining to the boards; otherwise a fine copy. Anker, 437 (bird section); Cat. BM(NH) Supplement, pp. 380-381; Lyal, C. H. C. (2011), The dating of the Biologia Centrali-Americana, pp. 67-100 in Zoological Blibliography 2011(1); Nissen ZBI, 4589.