ESSAY ON THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF SERPENTS. Translated by Thos. Stewart Traill, M.D.

VERY RARE, First Edition in English, from the almost as scarce French edition of 1837 printed in the Netherlands. With large fold-out map of the world showing the distribution of venomous snakes in seven colours, and with two plates showing the heads of herpetodryas carinatus. 8vo, in the publisher's original brown cloth, the covers with panel designs in blind, the spine ruled in blind and gilt lettered. vii, 254pp, 2 plates, 1pp. errata. A very rare survival in very pleasing and fresh condition, the text is nearly pristine, the folding map and plates also in fine condition, front endpaper slightly creased and with neat ownership marking of Dr. George Fair, the hinges strong with no splitting to the paper, the brown cloth is a bit mellowed and shows some fairly minor age at the tips and corners but is still quite attractive with bright gilt. VERY RARE IN THIS CONDITION AND IN ORIGINAL BINDING UNRESTORED.

Edizione: very rare, we know of only one other copy recently in commerce and world cat lists the naturalis biodiversity center of the netherlands as having the only copy in institution collections. hermann schlegel was a noted herpetologist of german origin who was a times both the director of the natural history museum in leyden and correspondent of the royal institute of the netherlands. the english naturalist charles darwin knew of schlegel's reputation from his close friend, the british botanist and explorer joseph dalton hooker.<br> no fewer that four snakes are named for schlegel: bothriechis schlegelii, the eyelash pit viper; calamaria schlegeli, the red-headed reed snake; (aspidomorphus schlegelii, schlegel's adder; and afrotyphlops schlegeliii, the beaked blind snake. several species of reptiles, amphibians, and birds are named for him as well.