London, John Van Voorst, 1873. Large 4to (30.3 x 23.7 cm). xxiii, [i], 384 pp.; 36 finely lithographed plates, of which 35 in delicate original hand-colouring, and one (frontispiece) only tinted, as intended. Contemporary red half morrocco over pebbled, triple-gilt-bordered linen boards. Spine with five raised, gilt-rolled bands; compartments rich gilt with floral patterns and gilt title. Marbled endpapers. All edges gilt.

First edition, with all the fine plates by the great Anglo-Dutch natural history illustrator John Gerrard Keulemans (1827-1912). These large illustrations are "often quoted as being Keulemans' finest drawings" (Jackson). Written by the British ornithologist Walter Lawry Buller (1838-1906). A second, expanded edition, published 15 years later, is twice as common. It differs from the first edition in having 50 plates, but the coloured plates are in chromolithography, whereas in this first edition they are hand-coloured (see Anker, who, however, did not have a copy of the first edition in her library). Provenance: mounted on the front pastedown a bookplate of the New Zealand biologist (chiefly entomologist, interested in mosquitos, their behaviour and control) Marshall Laird (1923-2007). The bookplate shows New Zealand's Northern Island superimposed on Newfoundland. Light shelf-wear to board edges; a few small smudges to the boards. An excellent, clean copy in the much-desired red morocco binding. Anker, pp. 109-110; Jackson, Bird Illustrators p. 88; Nissen IVB, 163; Sitwell, Fine Bird Books, p. 85; Zimmer, pp. 114-115.