John Frederick Miller and George Shaw | Cimelia physica, 1796 but later, fine zoological and botanical plates

John Frederick Miller and George Shaw.

Cimelia physica: Figures of rare and curious quadrupeds, birds, &c. Together with several of the most elegant plants. Engraved and coloured from the subjects themselves. London: T. Bensley for Benjamin and John White and John Sewell, 1796 [Plates watermarked Whatman and W. Balston 1814]

Folio (533 x 365mm.), 60 hand-coloured etched plates by and after Miller, including 41 plates of birds, many printed in sepia, later half calf over nineteenth-century cloth, marbled endpapers

The first edition with the text by George Shaw, the second edition overall. The quadrupeds represented, ranging in size from the moose to the jerboa, are outnumbered by attractive birds, usually shown next to a carefully chosen plant. Among the parrots, loxia and orioles is Psittacus melanocephalus, said by Shaw to be of a “peculiarly stubborn and obstinate nature; tamed with great difficulty and very quarrelsome”. Other rarities include the flightless cassowary; Columba coronata, the largest and most magnificent of the doves; the Antarctic falcon; Vultur secretarius or the secretary bird with its remrkable crest; a South American kingfisher never before described; the violet-black hoopoe, one of the rarest of its genus, as well as one of the most beautiful; and an Indian toucan.

LITERATURE:

Fine Bird Books, p.94; Nissen IVB 638; Stafleu TL2 6033; Wood, p. 465; Zimmer, p.585