NATURAL HISTORY from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

[Monterey, CA?], 1900. A lovely commercially produced (though likely in small quantities) album of colorful preserved marine algae specimens mounted on six leaves of cardstock and enclosed within thin sections of whale vertebrae. The algae samples are beautifully arranged and still have brilliant color. The bone front cover has a hollowed-out center lined with cardstock with specimens mounted in… Read more about this item

London: Printed for J. Whitson and B. White.., 1752. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. A work mostly devoted to entomology (insects being the most common subject of these essays), with a few botanical pieces. Two examples: Essay X, "On a Species of Fly produced on the Flower of a Plant" and Essay XII: "On the Production and Fructification… Read more about this item

[San Francisco]: [Probably Taber Photo], 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) image of the El Capitan, one of the best-known rock formations in the Yosemite Valley. Watkins made at least five mammoth-plate images from this vantage point over a period of at least 20 years. Watkins took this image between 1878… Read more about this item

[San Francisco]: [Probably Taber Photo], 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) image "made on the path leading from Hutchings's Upper House hotel to his residence a few hundred yards north of the hotel, north of present-day Sentinel Bridge," Naef and Hult-Lewis, p. 90. Watkins took this image between 1878 and 1881. It… Read more about this item

San Francisco: Taber Photo, 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) portrait of Galen Clark holding a rifle and standing in front of one of the first famous trees from the Yosemite area. Watkins took this image in 1865 or 1866, during one of his extended trips to Yosemite. It was printed by Isaiah… Read more about this item

[San Francisco]: [Probably Taber Photo], 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) image of the Three Brothers mountains with the Merced River in the foreground. Watkins returned to this spot over and over and made many photographs from this vantage point. Watkins took this image between 1878 and 1881. It may have been… Read more about this item

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Natural history essays. First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Inscribed by Lopez to the host of the Oregon Public Radio show Profiles, Mel Waggoner, "For Mel-with my best wishes, Barry Lopez.

Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co, 1877. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. The extinction of the Rocky Mountain Locust through human action was an act of ecological destruction even greater than the better-known extinction of the passenger pigeon. In 1875, a swarm estimated at 12.5 trillion (!) insects spread over much of the Midwest and intruded into central Canada,… Read more about this item

Chapel Hill: Algonquin Young Readers, 2017. Hardcover. New/New. A Junior Library Guild Selection! Adapted from Amy Stewart's original New York Times bestseller, the young readers edition of Wicked Bugs is a creepy-cool guide to the worst of the worst insects, arachnids, and arthropods. Illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. Reading age: 8 to 12 years; Lexile measure: 1210L;… Read more about this item

Chapel Hill: Algonquin Young Readers, 2017. Trade paperback. New. A Junior Library Guild Selection! Adapted from Amy Stewart's original New York Times bestseller, the young readers edition of Wicked Bugs is a creepy-cool guide to the worst of the worst insects, arachnids, and arthropods. Illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs. Reading age: 8 to 12 years; Lexile measure:… Read more about this item

Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the National Science Foundation, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xiv, 627-1189 pages (continuously paginated from part 1). Part 2 of 4, translated from the German. Original version first published in 1929-1935. First edition in English. A very good copy in a very good dust jacket.

Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the National Science Foundation, 1992. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. xiii, 625 pages. Part 1 of 4, translated from the German. Original version first published in 1929. First edition in English. A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket.

Washington, DC: Lumber and Timber Products War Committee, 1942. Poster. Near Fine. A terrific and dramatic home front propaganda poster encouraging lumber production published by a lobbying group of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association (now the National Forest Products Association). The poster depicts Uncle Sam, illustrated in a wood-cut style, holding an ax and pointing toward forested mountains.… Read more about this item

Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Near fine. A portrait of rich environmental and cultural heritage of the Amazon, told through oral histories, stories, and published accounts. The author is a Brazil expert at UC Berkeley and did extensive field work in South America. 332 pages. First edition (first printing with a numberline… Read more about this item

Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1939. First Edition. 152 plants are listed, with scientific name, family, common name, habitat, parts used, distribution, and remarks about use. Includes plants for papermaking, rope, and ceremonial use. v, 40 pages, including an index. Published as the Botanical Survey of India, no. 3. Based on the coding at the base of the last… Read more about this item

Calcutta: Superintendent, Government Printing, 1910. First Edition. [1], 59-140, iii (index). With a large, folding map of Sikkum, printed in black. A report on a plant-gathering expedition. First edition (first printing). Very good in wrappers. Map near fine.

Calcutta: Government of India Press, 1952. First Edition. Information on "a number of useful drugs of the indigenous materia medica" derived from leaves, with reports and plates documenting microscopic analysis. Includes entries on tea, tobacco, coca, cannabis sativa, digitalis, etc. Government of India, Ministry of Health, Pharmacognosy Laboratory Bulletin No. 2. vi, 124 pages. 7 by 10… Read more about this item

London and Bombay: Richardson & Co. and Education Society's Press, Byculla, 1881. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Descriptions of plants in the Southern province of Pakistan, with information on their use, organized by class and family. The author was curator of the Kurrachee Municipal Museum. Among the plants given full treatment are cannabis sativa ("The general effects… Read more about this item

London: Smith, Elder, and Co, 1855. First Edition. Includes a chapter on hemp (cannabis sativa), about which the author writes, "The Hemp plant likewise secretes a resinous principle in its leaves, on which account these, as well as the churrus collected from off the young tops of the stem and flowers, is highly esteemed in Eastern countries, on account… Read more about this item

[San Francisco]: (the author), 1949. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. A day-by-day account of Witter's month-long safari in British East Africa in September and October 1948. With a record of animals killed at the back. The illustrations are reproductions of color photographs, printed with particularly intense color, lending an air of hyper-reality to many of them. Witter… Read more about this item