SNAKES OF SOUTHERN AFRICA (1962) - Inscribed by Author to Government Ethnologist N. J. van Warmelo

Publisher's ochre cloth binding with gilt titles on spine. Illustrated dust jacket. Housed in publisher's original slipcase.

423pp. Illustrated.

Book is in fine condition with solid binding and clean pages. Dust jacket in fair condition as it has some loss at the spine ends.

INSCRIBED by Fitzsimmons on the front endpaper to Nicolaas Jacobus van Warmelo, who was Government Ethnologist and author of numerous works on the native tribes of South Africa. Van Warmelo was also a collector of Antiquarian Africana.

'This fully illustrated and authoritative book represents the results of practically a lifetime of work bu the author, and is an important contribution to the study of herpetology.It deals comprehensively with the one hundred and thirty-seven different snakes that have been identified in the territory south of a line from the Zambesi to the Cunene Rivers. Every species is fully described, with particular emphasis on their differentiating features and habits. The localities in which they have been reported are listed, and their geographical distribution is shown by seventy-eight special maps.

An outstanding feature of the book is the seventy-six colour plates reproduced from a series of original water-colour paintings by a well-known scientific illustrator, the late P. J. Smit.'