ANDREW SMITH'S ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ZOOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA - VOLUME 2 AVES

First Edition: 114 fine hand coloured plates of birds after George Henry Ford - plate 6 a hand-coloured aquatint and 113 are hand coloured lithographs, unpaginated, each plate with a page of descriptive text, complete with the original title page, recently bound in half brown leather with black and green title labels on the spine and green cloth sides, bookplate of Harry Bolus on the front paste-down endpaper, top edge gilt, light foxing mainly on the preliminary and final pages, a very good copy.

Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa was originally issued in 28 individual parts. Part I, which consisted of 10 plates, appeared on July 1st, 1838, and cost ten shillings. Three other parts were completed that year, including Macleay's contribution in part III. At a price of sixteen shillings part III comprised 75 numbered pages of text and four plates. All other parts had 10 engraved plates which were numbered in the four divisions Mammalia, Aves, Reptilia and Pisces, whilst the descriptive pages were not numbered, so that subscribers could arrange them in an order to suit their individual requirement. The set is usually found bound in three volumes of which Aves (Birds) is the largest division comprising one volume.

In Africana Notes and News, Volume II, Number I, December 1944, pages 2 - 14, Percival Kirby (who edited Andrew Smith’s Diary, Van Riebeeck Society, first series, volumes 20 & 21, 1939 & 1940 and later wrote his biography: Sir Andrew Smith M.D., K.C.B.His Life, Letters and Works, Cape Town 1965) describes in minute detail the origins and publication of Smith's Zoology and all the individual parts. It is the essential reference source.

Mendelssohn (Sydney) South African Bibliography, Volume 2, page 328, ‘This handsome and valuable work gives full particulars of the natural history subjects of South Africa, collected by Dr. Andrew Smith's expedition in the country lying between 25° and 27° 58' east longitude and 31° and 23° 28' south latitude, embracing part of the Cape Colony, Natal, and " Kafirland." The illustrations, which are of a very high order, were executed by Mr. George Ford, who accompanied the expedition, and consist of five plain and 273 coloured plates, while the letterpress is of a most accurate and exhaustive character. Part of the expense of the publication was defrayed by the British Government, in order that the work " might be sold at a price which would place it within the reach of the generality of naturalists." The plates were published in five divisions, " numbered independently, and the letterpress descriptions left unpaged, in order that they may be arranged according to the particular view of purchasers. An index to each division is given." In consequence of this arrangement this work is sometimes bound in three volumes and sometimes in four.’