AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION COPY. Fauna der Kieler Bucht. Vol. 1 Die Hinterkiemer oder Opisthobranchia, Vol. 2 Die Prosobranchia und Lamellibranchia neist Einem Supplement zu den Opisthobranchia

Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1865. First edition.

1865, 1872 TWO FOLIO VOLUMES - LANDMARK STUDY OF MARINE INVERTEBRATE ECOLOGY ILLUSTRATED WITH FINE HAND COLORED LITHOGRAPHS.

Two folio volumes 14 inches tall, printed paper covered card covers, soiled and edge-worn, cloth spine. Vol. 1 with handstamp of the Bryant Walker Library, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, to cover, and bookplate of Bryant Walker with image of snail on cattail leaf to front paste-down, and hand-inscribed card listing contents of volume affixed to ffep. xxx, 87, [11], tinted lithographic map, color temperature graph, 18 hand colored lithographic plates, 6 uncolored plates, errata slip; Vol 2. with author's insription to cover "Prof. A. Agassiz, Cambridge, Mass., hochachtungsfoll die Verfasser [compliments of the authors]" and bookplate on front paste-down, "Alex. Agassiz Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass. Founded by private subscription, in 1861. Deposited by Alex. Agassiz". xxiv, 139. 22 hand colored plates. Covers soiled, edges worn, light scattered foxing to Vol. 1, front hinge starting in Vol. 2, no foxing. Plates in both volumes bright. Overall good+. German language.

HEINRICH ADOLF MEYER (1822-1889) was a German manufacturer, oceanographer and politician. He was not only a successful manufacturer, he was also politically active and was elected member of the Reichstag in the constituency of Schleswig-Holstein to which he belonged to the faction of the German Progressive Party. Meyer's real interest, however, was in marine research. Although he had not completed a proper university degree, he wrote - often together with Karl August Möbius - remarkable books on the animal population in the Bay of Kiel and on snails and mussels in the Baltic Sea. He was particularly interested in the physical properties of the sea. He found that the temperature and salinity of the Baltic Sea were subject to considerable fluctuations from year to year and that the fish stocks in this inland sea depended on them in a special way. In his day there were no comparable studies on which he could have drawn. For this reason Meyer developed a completely new observation and measurement method.

KARL AUGUST MOBIUS (1825-1908) was a German zoologist who was a pioneer in the field of ecology and a former director of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. In 1849, and encouraged by Alexander von Humboldt, he began studying natural science and philosophy at Natural History Museum of Berlin. After he graduated, he taught from 1853 to 1868 zoology, botany, mineralogy, geography, physics, and chemistry at the Johanneum High School in Hamburg. In 1868, shortly after passing his doctoral examination at the University of Halle, he was appointed Professor of Zoology at the University of Kiel and the director of the Zoological Museum. Marine animals were among his main research interests and his first comprehensive work on the fauna of the Kieler Bucht already emphasized ecological aspects (Die Fauna der Kieler Bucht, offered here). In 1888 Möbius became the director of the Zoological Collections of the Natural History Museum of Berlin, and Professor of Systematic and Geographical Zoology at the Kaiser Wilhelm University, Berlin, where he taught until he retired in 1905, at the age of 80.

PROVENANCE:
BRYANT WALKER (1856-1936) was an American malacologist who specialized in the non-marine Mollusca.
ALEXANDER EMMANUEL RODOLPHE AGASSIZ (1835-1910), son of Louis Agassiz, was an American scientist and engineer. Agassiz was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1862. Up until the summer of 1866, Agassiz worked as an assistant in the museum of natural history that his father founded at Harvard. Of Agassiz's other writings on marine zoology, most are contained in the bulletins and memoirs of the museum of comparative zoology. Agassiz served as a president of the National Academy of Sciences, which since 1913 has awarded the Alexander Agassiz Medal in his memory.