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Hard cover, large 8vo, in red cloth, titles blocked in gold to front board and spine. Glazed chocolate brown endpapers with two engraved bookplates facing, and additional penciled note of the last of three prior owners, (with an interesting association.) Illustrated with one fold-out map in color, and six chromolithographed tissue-guarded full page plates, by Mintern Bros., taken from paintings by notable Dutch aviary artist and lithographer J.G. Keulemans (1842- 1912). Author, William Borrer, Jr., or "the Younger," (1814-1898) was the son of a famous father, the noted naturalist and plant collector, William Borrer, Sr. (1781-1862), a friend and colleague of the naturalists Joseph Banks and Joseph Hooker, and contributor of a collection of more than 6500 plants to Kew Gardens. The son, William Borrer Jr. was an avid student of birds, and had a large taxidermic and egg collection, housed in a museum in Cowsfold, Sussex. (BDNB)**CONDITION: Good. Some light marks to front, rubbing along the hinge. Spine a bit darkened. Front hinge has been reinforced, and first gathering reglued. Quarter inch chip to top of ffep. Rear hinge partly cracked but holding firmly. Edges dusty. Inside, plates remain bright. **PROVENANCE: Matthew Mackey 1902, EDWARD HERON- ALLEN, and wife Edith, 1925, to Veronica Gold (undated pencil inscription.) Englishman Heron-Allen, FRS (1861-1943) trained as a solicitor, yet was a man of many extracurricular interests, among them natural history leading him to scientific study of microscopic creatures of the chalk cliffs of his native Sussex. He also wrote two books on palmistry (or cheirosophy) in the 1890's, and was well-known in the world of seances and spiritualism, lecturing in the United States upon "spiritualistic manifestations." He cast the horoscope for the son of Oscar Wilde and his wife Constance. Additionally, he was a student of languages, and translator from the Persian. (Heron-Wilde Society). His obituary in the Notices of the Fellows of the Royal Society (Nov. 1943) describes him thus: "He was a man of wide-ranging versatility, but whatever enterprise he took up he was never satisfied until with persistent energy he had probed to the fundamentals of it and placed the whole matter in historical sequence. Hence there were few subjects within his ambit upon which he did not, sooner or later, produce a series of papers or a book treating the topic comprehensively and where possible tracing it back to its origins.His spirit was ever that of the scientific enquirer." Overall, an attractive and informative read, once owned by another unusual Victorian man of enquiry.
Ref: BIRD 9463
$85.00