Jardine, William, Sir

British Salmonidae. Edinburgh: Privately Printed for the Author, 1839–1841



Two parts in one volume, folio (27 x 19 1/2 in.; 686 x 495 mm). 12 fine handcolored engraved plates by W. H. Lizars after Sir William Jardine, 2 engraved text vignettes of nets, one woodcut text illustration. Publisher's puce cloth flexible boards, green straight-grained morocco spine, red morocco label on upper cover; corners bumped, spine repaired and recolored, with residual minor loss to foot of spine. Cloth folding case.

Nissen ZBI 2092

First edition of one of the finest monograph on British salmon and trout. Sir William, 7th Baronet of Jardine Hall near Lockerbie, was one of the foremost authorities in nineteenth-century Britain salmon and trout. With his estates across the rivers Annan and Tweed, he was able to study the species at length, and his contributions to ichthyology were as numerous as they were important. Indeed, his knowledge of icthyology led to his appointment in 1860 as the principal Commissioner charged with investigating the salmon fisheries of Great Britain, and the causes of their decay.

The work appeared in two parts: the first six plates appeared in 1839 and the second six in 1841, but plans for an octavo text were abandoned early on. Jardine employed W. H. Lizars, who had worked on the first two volumes of John J. Audubon's Birds of America between 1826 and 1828, to engrave the plates.  He also hired Gabriel Bayfield as the colorist; Bayfield had worked with some of the foremost naturalists of the nineteenth-century, including William Swainson, J.E. Gray, John Gould, and Charles Darwin. Rare, no copy of this work has appeared at auction since 1977.