[BUFFON, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de (1707-1788)]. The history of singing birds: containing an exact description of their habits & customs, & their manner of constructing their nests, their times of incubation, with the peculiar excellencies of their several songs, the method of rearing them in cages & the preparation and choice of their food, also the disorders they are subject to with the mode of treatment, including the history & management of canary birds. Edinburgh: Silvester Doig Royal Exchange, 1791.
First English edition. Leather-bound. Hardcover. Duodecimo (160 x 110 x 20 mm.). Pp. [6], 192 + 24 unnumbered leaves of plates. Contemporary half morocco, smooth spine gilt, marble paper-covered boards. Engraved title-page. 24 engraved plates of birds. Footnotes. Condition: Fair to good. Complete with all 24 plates. Binding tight and secure, the hinges intact. Some rubbing and staining to covers. Interior browned and toned, some varying marginal staining, couple of leaves with minor edge tears, front endpaper with small eroded hole. Scarce. [ESTC T66878].
Notes: A translation of Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux, from French into English by Count de Buffon; the whole ornamented with copper plates from drawings after nature.
