Beschreibung:

GOULD, John (1804-1881). The Mammals of Australia . London: Taylor and Francis for the Author, [1845]-1863.
GOULD, John (1804-1881). The Mammals of Australia . London: Taylor and Francis for the Author, [1845]-1863. 3 volumes, large folio (541 x 375 mm). 182 hand-colored lithographic plates, most heightened with gum-arabic, by Gould and Henry Constantine Richter, printed by Hullmandel & Walton. (One plate and two adjoining leaves of text bound upside-down.) Green morocco gilt extra, sides with triple foliate gilt border, spine in six compartments with five raised bands, gilt-lettered in two, a repeating gilt block in the remaining, all edges gilt, by Sotheran (vol. 1 with small gouge along upper board edge). FIRST AND ONLY EDITION OF THIS SUMPTUOUS PRODUCTION on the mammals of Australia, contributing much to the history, documentation and illustration of numerous species, many now extinct. As Sauer has pointed out, Gould was prophetic on this eventuality, and Gould's comments on the Tasmanian Tiger, Thylacinus cynocephalus, are poignant: “When the comparatively small island of Tasmania becomes more densely populated, and its primitive forests intersected with roads from the eastern to the western coast, the numbers of this singular animal will speedily diminish, extermination will have its full sway, and it will then, like the Wolf in England and Scotland, be recorded as an animal of the past.” The last Thylacine died in Hobart Zoo in 1936. Nissen ZBI 1661; Sauer 14; Wood, p.365