Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1904. 4to (26.6 x 21.6 cm). 118 pp. [numbered 332-449]; four finely lithographed and hand-coloured plates. Brown buckram with gilt title on the spine. Speckled edges.

The rarely seen complete continental molluscs results of the exploration of French Indo-China by Auguste Pavie. "Auguste Jean-Marie Pavie (1847-1925) was a French colonial civil servant, explorer and diplomat who was instrumental in establishing French control over Laos in the last two decades of the 19th century. After a long career in Cambodia and Cochinchina, Pavie became the first French vice-consul in Luang Prabang in 1885, eventually becoming the first Governor-General and plenipotentiary minister of the newly formed French colony of Laos" (Wikipedia). This part was written by the French malacologists Henri Fischer (general introduction), and Laurent-Joseph [Commandant] Morlet (1823-1892) Descriptions de mollusques nouveaux with new species that are often splendidly illustrated. The work is concluded with a Catalogue des mollusques terrestres et fluviatiles de l'Indo-Chine orientale cités jusq'à ce jourwritten by H. Fischer and P. Dautzenberg, and a bibliography with 83 titles. Provenance: stamp of the American malacologist Richard Irwin Johnson (1925-2020) in the top margin of the front free endpaper recto and first text leaf verso. A very good, clean copy. Cat. BM(NH) pp. 1532-1533.