Beschreibung:

René Primevère Lesson (1794-1849) Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux-Mouches. Paris: Imprimerie de Rignoux for Arthus Bertrand, [1829-1830]; Histoire Naturelle des Colibris, suivie d'un Supplément à l'Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux-Mouches. Paris: Imprimerie de Julien for Arthus Bertrand, [1830-1832]; Les Trochilidées ou les Colibris et les Oiseaux-Mouches, suivis d'un Index général. Paris: Imprimerie de Rignoux for Arthus Bertrand, [1832-1833]; Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis et des Épimaques . Paris: Imprimerie et Fonderie de Fain for Arthus Bertrand, [1834-1835]. 4 works in 4 volumes, 8° (228 x 140mm). All works with letterpress titles and half titles, second work with 'Garde' leaf bound in before half title, the second, third and fourth works with sectional titles. First work: 86 hand-coloured etched and engraved plates, heightened with gum arabic, by Jean Louis Denis Coutant after Antoine Germaine Bévalet, Zoë Dumont, Marie Clémence Lesson, Jean Gabriel Prêtre, and Antoine Charles Vauthier. Second work: 66 hand-coloured etched and engraved plates heightened with gum arabic by Coutant and Teillard, after Bévalet and Prêtre. Third work: 66 hand-coloured etched and engraved plates by Oudet after Prêtre and Bévalet. Fourth work: 43 hand-coloured etched and engraved plates, 3 double-page, heightened in gum arabic by Constant Duménil, Jean Baptiste Guyard and others after Paul Louis Oudart and Prêtre. (Some light scattered spotting and browning to text and plates, some tissue guards adhering to text leaves of plates, but not affecting image on plates, a few plates in the fourth work cropped, causing slight loss of imprint or title.) Uniformly bound in contemporary tree calf gilt (extremities lightly rubbed, joints slightly cracked). Provenance : Eugène Robert, Marennes (marginal inkstamp on titles); Dr P. Maisonneuve, Angers (inscription on front free endpaper of first work and marginal inkstamp on half titles); Bernard Quaritch Limited (collation note at end). A fine set of Lesson's major ornithological works. The 'Dr P. Maisonneuve' ex-libris stamp is possibly that of Dr Paul Maisonneuve (1849-1927), Professeur à la Faculté Libre des Sciences d'Angers, and author of Traité de l'Oestéologie et de la Myologie du Vespertilio Murinus (Paris and Angers: 1878) and various zoological and botanical textbooks. Anker 291, 293-294 and 296; BM(NH) III, p.1096; Brunet III, col.1017; Fine Bird Books (1990) p.117; Nissen IVB 547-550; Ronsil 1774; Whittell p.436 (fourth work only, calling for 40 plates); Wood p.433; Zimmer pp.386-390. (4)