⁂ Please note, the description of this lot has changed ***

Zoology.- [Pennant (Thomas)] The British Zoology. Class I. Quadrupeds. II. Birds, first edition, title and dedication in red and black, 132 finely hand-coloured etched plates by P. Mazell after P. Paillou, a few ff. with short marginal tears, occasional spotting and light offsetting, a few plates with small manuscript captions, Henry Rogers Broughton bookplate, contemporary diced russia, by Banks & Son of Edinburgh, richly tooled in gilt, upper cover detached with title, some light rubbing to extremities, g.e., [Anker 392; ESTC T154286; Fine Bird Books, p.131; Jackson, Etchings, p.106; Nissen IVB 710; Wood, p.515; Zimmer, p.487-488], folio, London, J. and J. March, 1776.

⁂ An ambitious and handsome work which attempted to depict all known British birds and quadrupeds. Thomas Pennant was an accomplished polymath, especially with his knowledge of natural history; it was the publication of this work which led to his election as a fellow of the Royal Society.

Very rare first edition issued in four parts beginning in 1761, the work was to be completed in 1766 with 107 plates and descriptions. In that year however a supplement of 25 plates was published. Copies with the supplements bound in, like this copy, are seldom found according to Brunet. To the descriptions of each species are added references to other zoological works of the period. 121 plates show birds and 12 quadrupeds. These really splendid folio plates cost Pennant so much that the British charity school at Clerkenwell, for which the profits from the book were intended, came off badly as did Pennant himself.