Wien, Kaiserliche Academie der Wissenschaften, 1852. Folio (38.5 x 27.5 cm). 32 pp.; one chromolithographed plate. Disbound, but with contemporary blind wrappers.

The very rare first edition of this important study on the remarkable colour adaptivity of chameleons. Written by the German physiologist and anatomist Ernst Wilhelm Ritter von Brücke (1819-1892). A year after the author's death it was reprinted in a smaller form. Published in the academy's Denkschriften, vierter Band. Extracted from this volume. Light foxing to the plate (which combines plate numbers LX and LXI), otherwise a very good, clean copy. Not in any major bibliography.