Delagoa Bay, Its Natives and Natural History

8vo; brown pictorial cloth, blocked in gilt to spine and in black to upper cover; pp. xii + 274 + publisher's adverts.; plates and illustrations in text. Extremities very lightly rubbed; bookplate of Louis Péringuey to front pastedown; some foxing to edges, endpapers and outermost leaves, occasional fox spot elsewhere. Good to very good condition.

(Hosken p. 144; Tenri Africana 2280; Mendelssohn II, p. 42) 'This volume, written by the widow of the author of "Angola and the River Congo," gives an account of her experience during a second visit (of five years' duration) to what she calls "the benighted region of Delagoa Bay." ... The writer appears to have been a keen observer of the birds, reptiles, and insects of the country, an ardent naturalist and botanist, and an energetic and successful collector." - Mendelssohn.

Louis Péringuey (1855-24) was a zoologist, archaeologist and director of the South African Museum. "Seventeen insects (if we include their grubs and even a daddy-long-legs) pay homage to the entomologist L. Péringuey on this lovely plate designed and engraved on steel by J. Migneaux, who usually illustrated scientific works. Only the magnifying glass reveals the full beauty of the original, which shows every leg of the tiny insects perfectly modelled, every hair on a beetle's mandibles convincingly rendered with incredible sharpness." - South African Bookplates from the Percival J. G. Bishop Collection, p. 26