Diptères Exotiques nouveaux ou peu connus. Tome 1 (Pt 1-2), Tome 2 (Pt 1-3), 1-5 Supplément

Description:

Text French. Very scarce. Lithographic plates by the author, unusually, those to Tome 1 and Tome 2 (Pt 1+2) are hand-coloured (apart from one illustrating wings only). (Plates numbered 1-25; 1-14; 1-21, 3bis; 1-22; 1-36; 1-20; 1-6; 1-7; 1-28; 1-7. All bibliographies omit to mention the bis plate in Tome 2, part 1). Originally published in the Mémoires de la Société royale des sciences, de l'agriculture et des arts de Lille, 1838-55, and also issued in separate form (as here, with the exception of final part of the supplement, which is paginated as in the original journal issue: 25-156). Evenhuis gives pagination for the separate issue of Supplément 2 as 104, however our copy runs only to p. 96 and is lacking the 8pp of 'Explication des Figures' and 'Table Alphabetique des Matieres' for this part. This copy includes the 'Tableau général des espèces' pp. 337-364 following Supplément 4 (not listed in Evenhuis' collation). The separate issue of Tome 1, part 1 was originally issued under the title 'Insectes dipteres nouveaux ou peu connus', however, as noted by Evenhuis, most copies have a strip of paper with the altered title, 'Dipteres exotiques' pasted over the original to half-title and title, as in this copy.

Pierre Justin Marie Macquart (1776-1855) was one of the eminent French dipterists of the nineteenth century and a friend of Meigen. He produced a number of works on European as well as non-European Diptera in which he described many new species. He was director of the Lille Musee d'Histoire Naturelle. Macquart describes almost 2000 new non-European species in this work, drawing on material in a number of important collections of Diptera then in Paris.

Nissen ZBI 2643; Horn Schenkling 14378; Evenhuis, Litteratura Taxonomica Diptorum, pp. 512-514

Condition

Complete in 2 volumes (5 parts) and 5 supplements, bound in 5, 8vo (210x135mm), cont. half calf, marbled boads and endpapers, Tome 1-2 (3 vols): scuffed and worn, chipped with some small areas of loss to spines, rear joint to Tome 1 cracked along almost entire length, others with smaller areas of wear along joints; Supplements (2 vols): possibly bound slightly later in very closely matching style, very good. Some foxing. A few plates and pages browned. Some plates closely cropped affecting the plate numbers.