DISSERTATIO ZOOLOGICA, ENUMERATIONEM MAMMALIUM CAPENSIUM (1832)

Publisher's original binding with thin light blue paper-covered boards.

[viii] + vi + 108pp. + three plates (two in colour). The first of the three plates is that of the Cape Gerbil, which Smuts named Meriones schlegelii in honour of his friend Hermann Schlegel. Some copies contain a loosely inserted 2pp. farewell poem by Schlegel. This copy, like many others, does not.

Interesting entries are that of the Quagga Equus Quagga, an endemic species of zebra which at the period was still present in scattered populations, and the Bluebuck Antilope Leucophaea, which had already disappeared by the late 1700's (See image box for Smuts's entries).

Spine chipped and cracked. Internally clean.

'Johannes Smuts was the only child of Johannes J.L. Smuts, a prominent citizen of Cape Town, and his first wife Cornelia G. Fleck. The younger Johannes studied at the Rijksuniversiteit (State University) at Leiden, The Netherlands, where he was awarded a doctoral degree in philosophy and the natural sciences in 1832. His thesis, Dissertatio zoologica inauguralis, exhibens enumerationem mammalium capensium... (Zoological doctoral dissertation, with a summary of Cape mammals) was written in Latin in accordance with the requirements of Dutch universities at the time. Published in Leiden in 1832, it was the first scientific publication dealing exclusively with the South African fauna. It consisted mainly of a systematic account of the mammals of the Cape Colony, divided into orders, families and species. Much remained to be discovered at the time, so that his descriptions were rather brief and incomplete. For example, in the last chapter, dealing with the order Cetacea (marine mammals), he identified only five species of whales with certainty. The published thesis included a farewell poem by a friend, Hermann Schlegel, after whom Smuts had named Meriones schlegelii (the Cape Gerbil, now Tatera afra).

Soon after his graduation Smuts returned to Cape Town. On 20 March 1833 he married Susanna M. Ferris, with whom he had five daughters and seven sons. In various almanacs for 1835 to 1838 he was described as a "naturalist, seedsman, etc." or "collector of curiosities", with a garden in Oranje Street, a "museum of natural curiosities, seeds, etc.", and stores in St George's Street. By 1857 he was living at Zorgwyk, the residence of his father in Gardens. When he died in 1869, at the same address, he had no occupation and possessed only clothes and books.' -  from https://www.s2a3.org.za/ biographical database of southern African science