A Monograph of the Coraciidae, or Family of the Rollers

377x283 mm. xix (title page, dedication leaf, contents, list of plates, preface, introduction), [1], 111, [1] and 27 hand-coloured lithograph plates. Later three-quarter red morocco, marbled boards, marbled slipcase. A very good, clean copy. First edition published in 250 copies. Written by the British ornithologist Henry Eeles Dresser, and illustrated by the famous Dutch bird illustrator John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912), who engraved the plates and colored them himself. “The great value of Keulemans' work as an ornithological draughtsman lay in his sureness of design of the plate and his accuracy in portraying the birds themselves. The bird figures were carefully drawn and executed down to the last scales on the feet. The feathering was neatly delineated with the different plumes receiving sympathetic treatment, the fine soft under plumage and the large flight feathers being equally well drawn” (C.E. Jackson, Bird Illustrators, p. 90). Intended by the author as a companion to his Meropidae, this monograph is devoted on the Coraciidae, known as rollers, because of their aerial acrobatics. Rollers occur mainly in Africa, and Asia. Fine Bird Books, 72; Nissen, IVB, 270; Zimmer, p. 178.