Falconers' Favourites. Brodrick, William.

First edition of this superb work, intended as a sequel to Salvin and Brodrick's Falconry in the British Isles (1855), but employing a larger format, "better adapted by the size of the drawings, that of life, to illustrate more fairly the beautiful creatures with which the falconer has to deal" (Introduction). According to Resler Swift's Bibliotheca Accipitraria II just 100 copies were printed. William Brodrick (1814-1888) was educated at Harrow and University College, Oxford, "although he was wont to say à propos of his lifelong love for natural history, that 'all he learned at Harrow was how to catch birds'" (obituary in The Zoologist). His uncle was the celebrated ornithologist Prideaux John Selby. "It is as a writer on falconry, and an admirable draughtsman and painter of birds of prey, that Mr Brodrick was and will be widely known in 1865 [he] produced a charming series of folio plates, entitled Falconers' Favourites, in which he gave life-sized coloured figures of a famous tiercel 'Comet', from Lundy, and 'Hurricane', the best Dutch passage falcon he ever possessed, with other portraits of a goshawk and sparrowhawk, hobby, and merlin" (ibid.). An online search accounts for 14 copies among institutional libraries; just seven having gone through auction since 1982. Provenance: spine stamped at foot with gilt initial L surmounted by a baron's coronet; possibly Hugh Cecil Lowther, fifth earl of Lonsdale (1857-1944), noted sportsman. Harting 70; Nissen IVB 146; Schwerdt I, 82; Wood p. 262. The Zoologist, Third Series, Vol. XIII, 1889. Folio (587 x 412 mm). Late 19th-century dark green half morocco, spine gilt lettered longitudinally, sides and corners trimmed with a gilt single fillet, swirled Nonpareil pattern sides and endpapers. With 6 hand-coloured tinted lithograph plates by and after Brodrick, printed by Hanhart. Binding professionally refurbished. An excellent copy, the plates fresh and clean.