The Naturalist's Library. Mammalia. Vol II. The felinae

The Natural History of the Felinae. Illustrated by thirty-five plates, coloured, and numerous wood-cuts; with memoir or Cuvier.

Edinburgh, London, Dublin: W.H. Lizars, and Stirling and Kenney, etc, 1834.

A volume in the Naturalist's Library series, an important collection of writings on natural history and leading naturalists of the time, embellished by more than 1,300 engravings in total. The series was edited by Scottish naturalist Sir William Jardine (1800-74), who wrote around a third of the volumes, and individual volumes were issued from 1833-43. This present volume is the second in the series on big cats, including lions, tigers, jaguars and pumas, and is illustrated by 35 coloured engravings, mostly with tissue-guards. With an additional engraved titlepage and portrait frontispiece of Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, Baron Cuvier, known as Georges Cuvier, a French naturalist and zoologist, referred to as the 'founding father of paleontology', on whom Jardine has contributed a lengthy memoir. Bound in dark green half calf over matching, sand-grained boards, raised bands to spine with red label lettered in gilt and direct gilt lettering. Paged edges speckled pink. Spotting to endpapers and pastedowns. Surface rubbing to extremities, tips or corners, etc. All plates very fresh and clean, offsetting in a few places where the tissue-guard is lacking. A VG and solid copy.