Search Results: NATURAL HISTORY from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

San Francisco: Taber Photo, 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) portrait of Galen Clark holding a rifle and standing in front of one of the first famous trees from the Yosemite area. Watkins took this image in 1865 or 1866, during one of his extended trips to Yosemite. It was printed by Isaiah Taber from the original negative, after Taber took over Watkins's bankrupt photo studio. The Getty owns a copy of this image and it is very similar to one of Watkins's mammoth-plate images (Naef and Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, no. 104). While it is generally known that Watkins regularly took his 18-by-22-inch mammoth glass-plate camera and a stereoview camera to Yosemite, the existence of imperial plate photographs suggests he took a third camera with him on his trips. Amy S. Doherty ("Carleton E. Watkins, Photographer: 1829-1916" in the Syracuse University Courier vol. 15, no. 4, 1978) proposed this idea based on an examination of a bound… Read More

Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1939. First Edition. 152 plants are listed, with scientific name, family, common name, habitat, parts used, distribution, and remarks about use. Includes plants for papermaking, rope, and ceremonial use. v, 40 pages, including an index. Published as the Botanical Survey of India, no. 3. Based on the coding at the base of the last page, probably issued in an edition of 1000 copies. First edition (first printing). Cover edges slightly chipped; some old worming. About very good in printed paper boards over a cloth spine. With three leaves of addenda and errata laid in.

New York: W. W. Norton, 2019. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 303 pages. First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Signed by Houston on a page tipped in at the front of the book.

[San Francisco]: [Probably Taber Photo], 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) image of the El Capitan, one of the best-known rock formations in the Yosemite Valley. Watkins made at least five mammoth-plate images from this vantage point over a period of at least 20 years. Watkins took this image between 1878 and 1881. It may have been printed by Isaiah Taber, after Taber took over Watkins's bankrupt photo studio. However, it does not have the Taber imprint but the mount matches another Yosemite image with Taber's logo in the negative. This view is very similar to one of Watkins's mammoth-plate images (Naef and Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, no. 136) and was almost certainly taken at the same time. It is easily distinguishable from images taken at another time because this image and the corresponding mammoth-plate view have a white reflection of the mountain in the water in the foreground. In addition to the albumen print offered… Read More

Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. A portrait of rich environmental and cultural heritage of the Amazon, told through oral histories, stories, and published accounts. The author is a Brazil expert at UC Berkeley and did extensive field work in South America. 332 pages. First edition (first printing with a numberline ending in 1). A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket. This copy is inscribed by the author and her husband, Paul Zingg to Stephen Jay Gould, the noted paleontologist. With a posthumous bookplate marking the provenance.

London: Printed for J. Whitson and B. White.., 1752. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. A work mostly devoted to entomology (insects being the most common subject of these essays), with a few botanical pieces. Two examples: Essay X, "On a Species of Fly produced on the Flower of a Plant" and Essay XII: "On the Production and Fructification of a Singular Species of Moss." According to Hill's biographer, George Rousseau, "The Essays do not contain original ideas when compared to the major thinkers of natural history but the power of observation is noteworthy... The main achievement is making the unseen visible through words... The Essays have no plates nor do they need them; [Hill] conveys graphic images through vivified words."-The Notorious Sir John Hill, p. 189. [8], 415 pages. First edition. A very good copy in a late 19th century binding of polished calf and marbled paper-covered boards.

London: Smith, Elder, and Co, 1855. First Edition. Includes a chapter on hemp (cannabis sativa), about which the author writes, "The Hemp plant likewise secretes a resinous principle in its leaves, on which account these, as well as the churrus collected from off the young tops of the stem and flowers, is highly esteemed in Eastern countries, on account of its exhilarating and intoxicating powers." xiv, 403 pages, plus ads. First edition (first printing). Original blindstamped publisher's gold cloth. Hinges cracked; some foxing to pages; pencilled notes on a few pages and twelve lines of pencilled notes on the final page. With one leaf of undated ads and 16 pages of publisher's books, dated March 1855. Bookstore label of J. Higginbotham of Madras on front pastedown.

Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the National Science Foundation, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. xiii, 625 pages. Part 1 of 4, translated from the German. Original version first published in 1929. First edition in English. A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket.

Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the National Science Foundation, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xiv, 627-1189 pages (continuously paginated from part 1). Part 2 of 4, translated from the German. Original version first published in 1929-1935. First edition in English. A very good copy in a very good dust jacket.

New York: Springer-Verlag, 1993. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. 425 pages. An argument that the need for nitrogen is a strong motivating factor in the lives of animals, particularly herbivores. A widely cited work of ecology, with nearly a thousand citations in Google scholar. First edition (first printing). Corners bumped, else fine in illustrated boards (no dust jacket, as issued). Generically inscribed, "With my compliments and kind regards. T. C. R. White." Uncommon signed.

Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co, 1877. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. The extinction of the Rocky Mountain Locust through human action was an act of ecological destruction even greater than the better-known extinction of the passenger pigeon. In 1875, a swarm estimated at 12.5 trillion (!) insects spread over much of the Midwest and intruded into central Canada, devouring most of the crops and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. The last major swarm appeared in 1877; by the turn of the century, the most populous insect in North America was extinct. That marked the beginning of the insect apocalypse that concerns entomologists today. The author of this book was the state entomologist of Missouri. Here he presents the scientific knowledge about the locust, a chronology of historical swarms, a summary of locust legislation from the Midwest concerning it (including a Kansas law that conscripted residents to destroy young grasshoppers). Riley also reports on experimental efforts to kill… Read More

Calcutta: Superintendent, Government Printing, 1910. First Edition. [1], 59-140, iii (index). With a large, folding map of Sikkum, printed in black. A report on a plant-gathering expedition. First edition (first printing). Very good in wrappers. Map near fine.

[San Francisco]: [Probably Taber Photo], 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) image "made on the path leading from Hutchings's Upper House hotel to his residence a few hundred yards north of the hotel, north of present-day Sentinel Bridge," Naef and Hult-Lewis, p. 90. Watkins took this image between 1878 and 1881. It may have been printed by Isaiah Taber, after Taber took over Watkins's bankrupt photo studio. However, it does not have the Taber imprint but the mount matches another Yosemite image with Taber's logo in the negative. This view is very similar to one of Watkins's mammoth-plate images (Naef and Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, no. 200) and was almost certainly taken at the same time. In addition to the albumen print offered here, another example of this imperial plate image is in the Yosemite Museum, on a larger mount. While it is generally known that Watkins regularly took his 18-by-22-inch mammoth glass-plate camera and… Read More

Calcutta: Government of India Press, 1952. First Edition. Information on "a number of useful drugs of the indigenous materia medica" derived from leaves, with reports and plates documenting microscopic analysis. Includes entries on tea, tobacco, coca, cannabis sativa, digitalis, etc. Government of India, Ministry of Health, Pharmacognosy Laboratory Bulletin No. 2. vi, 124 pages. 7 by 10 inches. 51 half-tone plates, most reproducing four photographs of plant specimens, plus a folding map, "Distribution of Leaf Drug-Yielding Plants in India." First edition (first printing). Very good in the publisher's half-leather binding stamped in gilt on the spine. Several small wormholes penetrate the entire book.

London and Bombay: Richardson & Co. and Education Society's Press, Byculla, 1881. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Descriptions of plants in the Southern province of Pakistan, with information on their use, organized by class and family. The author was curator of the Kurrachee Municipal Museum. Among the plants given full treatment are cannabis sativa ("The general effects of the resin are alleviation of pain, remarkable increase of appetite, unequivocal aphrodisia, and great mental cheerfulness") and garden poppy ("Indian opium is decidedly superior to any other; much care being bestowed on its cultivation and preparation"). xxxv, 219 pages, including indexes by scientific name and common names in English and various Indian languages. Printed and bound in Bombay. First edition (first printing). Ink stain on front cover, else very good in the publisher's pebbled cloth. Old paper shelf label on spine; government office library bookplate on front pastedown.

[Monterey, CA?], 1900. A lovely commercially produced (though likely in small quantities) album of colorful preserved marine algae specimens mounted on six leaves of cardstock and enclosed within thin sections of whale vertebrae. The algae samples are beautifully arranged and still have brilliant color. The bone front cover has a hollowed-out center lined with cardstock with specimens mounted in the center. The rear cover is a solid piece of bone. The binding is seWn with a green silk ribbon. An exceptional example of a specimen book, both well preserved and beautiful. The book has 17 mounted specimens inside plus two or three on the cover; the interior specimens are numbered in pencil and keyed to a 23-name list of species mounted to the rear pastedown. This specimen book appears complete; the books were likely assembled based on the available "sea moss" and likely varied from copy to copy. A short printed note about whaling in old Monterey, where whale bones were so plentiful they were used as… Read More

[San Francisco]: (the author), 1949. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. A day-by-day account of Witter's month-long safari in British East Africa in September and October 1948. With a record of animals killed at the back. The illustrations are reproductions of color photographs, printed with particularly intense color, lending an air of hyper-reality to many of them. Witter was one of the first stockbrokers to successfully open offices across the US. 52 pages plus 9 leaves of plates with a color photograph reproduced on each side. 8-3/4 by 11-1/4 inches. Boards somewhat faded, as usual, thus very good. This copy is inscribed by Witter and is somewhat uncommon thus. "1949. To Bill Morris my World War I Buddy. Dean Witter.

Washington, DC: Lumber and Timber Products War Committee, 1942. Poster. Near Fine. A terrific and dramatic home front propaganda poster encouraging lumber production published by a lobbying group of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association (now the National Forest Products Association). The poster depicts Uncle Sam, illustrated in a wood-cut style, holding an ax and pointing toward forested mountains. An article in the Southern Lumberman (1942) announcing the poster series, explained the message the timber industry wanted to convey: "Washington war agencies are gradually--but surely--becoming convinced of the fact that trees must be felled and sawmills kept constantly at peak production if the part to be played in the war program by the lumber and timber products industry is not to be seriously retarded." The article also noted that the industry had secured draft deferments for men working in critical jobs. Roughly 22 by 28.25 inches. Offset lithograph printed in red and green. Very scarce… Read More

[San Francisco]: [Probably Taber Photo], 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) image of the Three Brothers mountains with the Merced River in the foreground. Watkins returned to this spot over and over and made many photographs from this vantage point. Watkins took this image between 1878 and 1881. It may have been printed by Isaiah Taber, after Taber took over Watkins's bankrupt photo studio. However, it does not have the Taber imprint but the mount matches another Yosemite image with Taber's logo in the negative. This view is very similar to two of Watkins's mammoth-plate images (Naef and Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, nos. 172 and 172) and was almost certainly taken at the same time. In addition to the albumen print offered here, another example of this imperial plate image is in the Yosemite Museum, on a larger mount. While it is generally known that Watkins regularly took his 18-by-22-inch mammoth glass-plate camera and a… Read More

Chapel Hill: Algonquin Young Readers, 2017. Hardcover. New/New. A Junior Library Guild Selection! Adapted from Amy Stewart's original New York Times bestseller, the young readers edition of Wicked Bugs is a creepy-cool guide to the worst of the worst insects, arachnids, and arthropods. Illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. Reading age: 8 to 12 years; Lexile measure: 1210L; Grade level: 3 to 7. 192 pages. Do you know about zombie bugs? They not only eat other bugs, but also inhabit and control their bodies. Scorpions glow in ultraviolet light. Flea vomit is the true culprit in a plague epidemic. And lots and lots of bugs dine on corpses. More bugs to know-and watch out for: Asian Giant Hornet: The size of a small bird with a sting that feels like a hot nail Giant Centipede: Up to twelve inches long, it hangs from cave ceilings to catch bats in midair Bombardier Beetle: Fires a hot, stinging liquid at a speed up to 1000 blasts per second Puss Caterpillar: It may look like a tiny Persian cat,… Read More