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Icones Piscium : Indicem Systematicum
Frederik Christian Kielsen (1774-1850), a Danish naturalist and teacher, published his Icones in six separate parts: fishes, mammals, insects, invertebrates, birds, and amphibians. Each has a brief text providing a Linnaean systematic classification followed by (as the title suggests) illustrations of the animals covered; the Icones piscium (fishes) has 48 plates that illustrate 130 species in 57 genera. With this volume we also purchased his Icones mammalium (111 plates, including 11 of whales and three of Homo sapiens) and Icones insectorum (106 plates
Esquisses Ornithologiques: Descriptions et Figures d'Oiseaux Nouveaux ou Peu Connus
A Dutch/Belgian ornithologist and paleontologist, du Bus amassed a private collection of almost 2500 bird specimens upon which he based this work and which he donated to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences when he became its director in 1846. Describing and illustrating species new to Western science, the Esquisses ornithologiques was issued in parts, with five hand-colored lithographs and corresponding text in each; SIL holds the first three parts (of seven total), with their original printed wrappers.
Matrimonial ladder: or Such things are
A wonderfully illustrated and "wise" little volume about the ups and downs of marriage. Both the text, which was written in verse, and the illustrations were etched on metal plates, printed, and then hand-colored. The content is summarized on the title page and it may well speak to those being tried by love: "So they ripe, and ripe! / And rot, and rot! / And hereby hangs a tail!! / 'Tis true, 'tis pity / And pity 'tis, 'tis true!!!".
