Serres, M. de
Des causes des migrations des animaux et particulièrement des oiseaux et des poissons.
Haarlem, Hollandsche Maatschappij van Wetenschappen, 1842. 4to (29.5 x 23.3 cm). xviii, iv, 322, [i] pp. Original blue wrappers with printed title labels on the spine.
A prize-winning standard work on animal migration, dealing in particular with birds and fish, written by the French polymath Marcel Pierre Toussaint de Serres de Mesplès (1780-1862). This is the rare first edition, published in the Natuurkundige Verhandelingen, Volume 2 (2). The second edition was published in Paris 1845 with 636 pp. and one plate. The first 18 pages (with Roman numbering) deal with matters relating to the society, including a list of members. Here we find such names as Arago, Berzelius, Brongniart, Buckland, Babbage, Ehrenberg, Gay-Lussac, Herschel, Alexander Von Humboldt, Lyell, Murchison, Richard Owen, Lucien Bonaparte, Von Martius, and of course Marcel de Serres. Uncut. Spine cover partly abraded mostly at the bottom, otherwise a very good copy. Cat. BM(NH) p. 1904; Wood, 563; DSB 12, pp. 317-318.