1938-1941 The Handbook of British Birds

Description

Colour Plates, First Edition, Illustrated

The first edition of this five-volume set in the publisher's original cloth binding.

Ink inscription to the front paste downs of all volumes, dated 1938.

An impressive and practical handbook to the birds of Britain, edited by Harry Forbes Witherby, a noted British ornithologist, author, publisher, and one of the founding members of the magazine, British Birds. This work provides details of identification and classification of bird families, with commentary on habitat, characteristics, and song.

With contributions from Francis Charles Robert Jourdain, a notable amateur British ornithologist known for his extensive research into the breeding biology of birds of the Palaeartic region, Norman Frederick Ticehurst, a British ornithologist, and Bernard William Tucker, an English ornithologist and lecturer in zoology at Oxford University.

This set comprises:
Volume I: Crows to Flycatchers (1938). Illustrated with thirty-three plates which are mostly in colour, six maps, and numerous in-text illustrations.
Volume II: Warblers to Owls (1938). Illustrated with thirty plates which are mostly in colour, six maps, and numerous in-text illustrations.
Volume III: Hawks to Ducks (1939). Illustrated with thirty-nine plates which are mostly in colour, seven maps, and numerous in-text illustrations.
Volume IV: Cormorants to Crane (1940). Illustrated with thirty-three plates which are mostly in colour, eight maps, and numerous in-text illustrations.
Volume V: Terns to Game-Birds, with additions and corrections as well as systematic list and indices (1941). Illustrated with twenty-two plates which are mostly in colour, ten maps, and numerous in-text illustrations.

Collated, complete.