[SWAYSLAND, WALTER]. Familiar Wild Birds. London: Cassell & Company, Limited, 1883.
FIRST EDITION; Complete in four volumes, leather-bound, hardcover, octavo (19cm x 13cm), pp. viii, 160; vii, 160; vii, 160; viii, 176. English text, with illustrations throughout. Handsomely bound in half calf gilt, marbled boards and endpapers, all page edges gilt, half-titles, with 160 chromolithograph plates printed on one side only by A. Thorburn and by Eliza Turck, numerous monochrome wood-cuts throughout, indexes. Condition: VERY GOOD. Contents complete. Bindings tight and secure, the hinges and joints intact. Covers very well-preserved with very slight rubbing to extremities. Interiors largely fresh and clean, just a touch of light foxing confined mostly to endpapers, all plates are exceptionally clean with tissue-guards present. Without previous ownership markings.
Notes: Rare first edition comprising the First Series, Second Series, Third Series and Fourth Series (complete in four volumes). This four volume ornithological work was written by W. Swaysland and provides an in depth study of a variety of species of birds with coloured plates by A. Thornburn and other artists. The work also covers nests and eggs.
