Leipzig, Gerhard Fleischer, 1824. 4to (30.3 x 22.8 cm). viii, 87 pp.; two engraved plates of which one partly hand-coloured. Original boards with original printed label mounted on the front board.

Rare, only edition. It deals mainly with "Schneckenblut" (the blood of freshwater and land snails), and "Krebsblut" (of the freshwater crustacean Astacus fluviatilis), but includes chapters on the effects of the climate and weather, light, electricity, magnetism, and other influences on cold-blooded invertebrates. The plates mainly depict snails, including Lymnaea. The author, Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869) was a German physiologist and friend of Goethe, as well as landscape painter and pupil of Caspar David Friedrich. "He is best known to scientists for originating the concept of the vertebrate archetype, a seminal idea in the development of Darwin's theory of evolution" (Wikipedia). A small water-stain in the lower gutter, otherwise a very good copy. Caprotti II, p. 15 (179). Neither in Cat. BM(NH) nor in Nissen.