Coloured Illustrations of the Eggs of British Birds by Hewitson, William C - 1846

London: van Voorst, 1846. First edition.

1846 HANDSOMLY BOUND VOLUMES CONTAINING 138 HAND COLORED LITHOGRAPHIC PLATES OF BIRDS' EGGS BY BRITISH NATURALIST--COPY OF H F WALTER WHO OWNED "THE BEST PRIVATE COLLECTION IN ENGLAND".

Two hardcover volumes 8 1/2 inches tall, full leather binding, blindstamped ruled margins to covers, spines with raised bands, gilt leather title labels, all edges gilt, Vol. I, armorial bookplate of Henry Fraser Walter to front paste-down, xvi, 223 pp, 62 hand colored lithographed plates (including 3 bis plates) of birds' eggs, each life size; Vol. II, [1], 225-470 pp, 76 hand colored plates (including 4 bis plates). Light abrasions to edges of covers and spines, very light scattered foxing, binding tight, pages crisp, plates bright and unmarked, very good+.

WILLIAM CHAPMAN HEWITSON (1806 - 1878) was a British naturalist. A wealthy collector, Hewitson was devoted to beetles, and butterflies, as well as birds' nests and eggs. He contributed to and published many works on entomology and ornithology and was an accomplished scientific illustrator. In early life, Hewitson had formed collections of British coleoptera and lepidoptera; he then devoted attention for some years to the study of birds' eggs. In 1831 he began his work British Oology (1833–42), and in 1832 he undertook a journey to the Shetland Islands, and in 1833 went on an expedition to Norway to discover the breeding places of some migratory species. He was accompanied on this trip by his friends John Hancock and Benjamin Johnson, with the aim of gathering plants, birds, and insects. During their visit to the Arctic circle, they were forced by the harshness of their circumstances, to live on the birds they shot. Hewitson's diary of this expedition was used for pieces on ornithology which appeared in Sir William Jardine's Magazine of Zoology. Hewitson was a founding member of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne in 1829, a member of the Entomological Society of London in 1846, the Zoological Society in 1859, and the Linnean Society in 1862.

PROVENANCE: HENRY FRASER WALTER (1822-1893) The first Emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) egg recovered is thought to have been brought back during the French South Polar expedition under Jules-Sebastien-Cesar Dumont D'Urville (1790-1842). The egg was then purchased in Paris in late 1840 or 1841 by Dr (Sir) Henry Alfred Pitman, who subsequently sold the collection five years later to Henry Fraser Walter of Papplewick Hall, Nottingham. Contemporary accounts of H. F. Walter's collection are found in 'Great Houses of Nottinghamshire and the County Families' by Leonard Jacks, published in 1881, "Three or four handsome walnut cabinets form part of the decorative furniture of this apartment. They contain a wonderful collection of birds' eggs—perhaps the best private collection in England. The eggs are arranged in layers of drawers, and are properly named and classified, some attention having been paid to the placing of the different sizes and to the arrangement of colours. Some of the foreign eggs are very beautiful in colour and shape, and there is an almost endless variety, from the tiny pearl-like egg of the humming bird to that of the extinct auk or of the hairy-looking apteryx of New Zealand, a stuffed specimen of which is to be seen outside, in the hall. Eggs of the ostrich, emu, cassowary, and the ova of the alligator are preserved in larger receptacles than the drawers of these cabinets, and two of the eggs of the largest of the feathered tribe have been made into very handsome vases, which form part of the pretty ornamentation of the drawing room."