SIR ANDREW SMITH'S "ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE 

 ZOOLOGY OF SOUTH AFRICA' 



»9 



AN ANNOTATED TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THE 

 "REPTILIA" VOLUME 



INTRODUCTION 



Sir Andrew Smith's Reptilia volume of the "Illustrations of the Zoology of South 

 Africa" (1838-1849) is the earliest monographic treatise exclusively dedicated to the 

 Southern African herpetofauna. It is even one of the earliest monumental works on the 

 herpetofauna of a subcontinent, preceded only by few publications of comparable 

 thoroughness, and it may be justifiable to say that it set new standards. While far more 

 famous works of that time, such as Dumeril and Bibron's "Erpetologie Generale" 

 (1834-1854) or Gray's catalogues of the collections of the British Museum (1844-1850), 

 dealt almost exclusively with preserved material from throughout the world that had been 

 deposited by various collectors over lengthy periods of time. Smith's work was based at 

 least partly upon material that appears to have been collected by himself or in his presence 

 (for a portrait see Adler 1989: 36). It is therefore of little surprise that his work contains a 

 wealth of biological information besides very detailed morphological data 



However, what makes Smith's book(s) a real treasure is the large number of 

 painstakingly detailed, mostly (hand-)coloured plates for which credit is due to the 

 extraordinarily talented G.H Ford; he later became the major artist at the British Museum 

 (BMNH). The animals portrayed are shown in entirely natural postures and in their live 

 colours In contrast to most previous works which were often strongly affected by 

 misconceptions and ancient tales, this gives evidence of Smith having observed at least 

 some of his specimens before they were bottled and that he may have used his observations 

 to influence the illustrations As a result they are of such quality that they could well be 

 used for a modern fieldguide. 



The Reptilia volume comprises 22 individual parts plus an appendix which were 

 issued over a period of eleven years. Unfortunately, complete sets are extremely rare today 

 and quite unaffordable. The volume has been reprinted only once (1977) and even this 

 reprint has become very scarce. These are likely to be the reasons why modem workers 

 quote Smith's data rather rarely. Another drawback causing further inconvenience when 

 trying to extract information from it, is the fairly erratic arrangement of species accounts 

 and plates issued. The pages of the main text chapter are not paginated, and the appendix, 

 which contains some of the original descriptions, is numbered independently. The plates 

 are numbered and provide virtually the only hint as to the chronological order. 



These difficulties have led to most, if not all, subsequent authors quoting as original 

 descriptions only the plate and figure numbers, or the numbers of the appendix pages; the 

 text of the main text chapter is usually, and undeservedly so, not mentioned The aforesaid 

 made me decide to prepare a new table of contents which takes into account the volume 

 as a whole, for which I think its 150th anniversary is a good choice of time. It is hoped that 

 by making this overview generally available, it will not only assist in finding a certain 

 section of text, but also form the basis for a proper quotation of the original descriptions. 



