a handsome set

First edition and a handsome set.

This work of the natural history of the various species of fishes that were known to occur in the rivers, lakes and ponds of the British Isles, contains a splendid set of colour plates from the drawings of A. F. Lydon. 'Houghton, a Shropshire clergyman, aimed his book at the fisherman rather than the naturalist, and the text (of which there is, unusually, plenty) gives information about recognition, feeding and breeding habits, habitat, bait and so on'. (Buchanan)

First edition; 2 vols, folio (373 x 283 mm); 41 chromolithographic plates by Benjamin Fawcett after Lydon, with tissue-guards, numerous engravings within text; some spotting, publisher's pictorial brown cloth gilt, decorated in gilt and blind, all edges gilt, slightly rubbed at the extremities with a little darkening of the cloth around the edges of the boards, a very good set.

Freeman, 1782; Nissen I, p.208; Buchanan (Nature into Art), 168.