A natural history, general and particular : containing the history and theory of the earth, a general history of man, the brute creation, vegetables, minerals, etc. etc.

By George Louis le Clerc, Count of Buffon ; translated from the French by W. Smellie. A new edition corrected and enlarged. To which is added a history of birds, fishes, reptiles and insects, embracing the recent discoveries of eminent naturalists, together with an account of the most curious foreign plants, by Henry Augustus Chambers, LL. D. London : Thomas Kelly, 1866. Two volumes, quarto, full straight-grain green morocco with blind and gilt floriated borders, spines in compartments with contrasting morocco title labels and gilt ornamentation, headcaps renewed and hinges repaired, engraved title page in the first volume (alternatively titled History of the earth and animated nature, exhibiting the delineations of the most distinguished wild animals in the various menageries of this country, with a hand coloured engraving of a tiger by J. Webb), pp. 682; viii (index); 462; viii (index), folding hand coloured map of the world (old miscreases), 95 fine hand-coloured plates of birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, insects, plants etc (including the plates of the African Negro and the White Negro, sometimes missing), the portrait frontispiece of Count de Buffon not bound in, a few short tears to the margins, occasional light foxing, a very good copy.

A condensed English translation of Buffon’s encyclopaedic  Histoire Naturelle, the superior edition with the plates vibrantly coloured by hand. Includes some Australian content such as a fine illustration of the emu.