A Monograph of the Culicidae or Mosquitoes. Vol. I-V + Plates

Description:

Scarce complete set including the atlas of 37 col and 5 b/w plates (1901).

This monograph represents one of the great scientific investigations of the early 20th century, based on the contributions of many hundreds of individuals from around the world. E.R. Lankester, Director of the British Museum (Natural History) explains the origins of this important publication in the preface, stating that at the request of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamerlain, the Royal Society established a ‘Committee to co-operate with the officials of the Colonial Office in the investigation of the causes of malaria and the possibility of controlling that scourge of tropical lands’. Three departments of the British state, the Colonial Office, the Foreign Office, and the India Office were mobilised ‘in the attempt to procure properly preserved collections of mosquitoes from all parts of the world’. A printed circular was ‘despatched to every officer of the colonial service. Other organisations and institutions, as well as private individuals and collectors throughout the world, were asked to assist in the undertaking’, resulting in vast numbers of specimens being sent from the British Empire and beyond, to the British Museum (Natural History). Theobald was employed to produce a monograph based on these collections, who was ‘unremitting in his labours’.

Most of the plates were drawn by Constance Beard, Theobald noted 'So carfefully and beautifully have they been executed that scarcely any have had to be returned for alterations'.

Condition

6 vols, 8vo, orig. cloth, corners bumped, binding broken in plate volume with pages/plates loose in binding. Some foxing. Ex-lib.: Free Library of Dundee, gilt shelf numbers to spines; small ink stamps to title-pages + plates (centre of colour plates but not obscuring images).