NEW YORK EVENING POST LITER 
Book Sales and Rare Books 
hav 
She 
By FREDERICK M. HOPKINS 
ORNITHOLOGICAL COLLECTION. 
M AJOR w. H. MULLENS of Lon- 
don is well known as a bibliog- 
rapher and collector. His work* 
“A Bibliography of British Ornithology,” 
appeared in 1917, and his “A Geographical 
Bibliography of British Ornithology” three 
years later. Both are standard reference 
works. The ornithological library upon 
“Which these two works are based, contain- 
ing more than 3000 volumes, forming one 
of the most complete collections on British 
ornithology ever brought together, said to 
have required twenty-six years of assidu- 
ous book hunting on the part of Major 
Mullens, has been bought by Henry Soth- 
eran & Co. of London, and is now being 
offered for sale in a catalogue just pub- 
lished by them. 
The range of the collection may be 
roughly stated as extending from the ex- 
ceedingly rare “Avium Priecipuarum His- 
toria,” 1544, by William Turner, known 
through his “Herbal” as the “father of 
British botany,” to Mr. Beebe’s monumen- 
tal work of “The Pheasants,” the fourth 
and last volume of which has only recent- 
ly been published. Within this period, and 
following Caius’s “Rariorum Animalium 
Historia,” 1570, come various books of 
the seventeenth century, when the science 
of ornithology was in its infancy, such as 
Childrey’s “Natural Rarities of England,” 
1661, and Merrett’s “Pinax,” 1666; and 
later the works of Ray and Willoughby, 
the early local books, including Carew’s 
“Cornwall,” 1602, Sibald’s “Scotia,” 1648, 
Morton’s “Northampton,” 1712, and Plot’s 
“Oxford,” 1677; followed by the eighteenth 
century books, mostly in quarto and folio, 
many with crudely colored plates, such as 
Albin, Pennant, Hayes, Latham, Bolton, 
Donovan, Graves, and I.ewin, the wood- 
cut books of Bewick, 1 others ; the finely 
illustrated books of the nineteenth century, 
with beautifully colored lithographic plates, 
such as Gould and Meyer ; and the exten- 
is i 
yah] 
sive series of local ornithologies, with their 
beautiful chromolithographs, such as Lil- 
ford ; and the books of today with plates 
reproduced by the 1 three color process. 
Some of the most important books are 
represented by two or more copies, so as 
to show the variations in the editions and 
issues. Thus here are no less than six copies 
of Meyer’s “Birds,” four of the octavo and 
two of the quarto editions, to one of the 
latter being added a collection of several 
hundred original drawings by the author ; 
the very rare “British Game Birds” by the 
same author is also included, and there are 
no less than five copies of Hunt’s “British 
Birds,” a scarce unfinished work, wanting 
in many collections. Lord Lilford is rep- 
resented by two copies of the famous 
colored figures of the “Birds of fhe Brit- 
ish Isles,” one having a duplicate set of 
proof impressions of many of the finest 
plates added; also by a “Lilford Miscel- 
lany” consisting of two volumes and a 
portfolio of original drawings, rejected 
plates, trial proofs, etc., with the author’s 
manuscript corrections, comment and notes. 
These items, and there are many others, 
show the unique character of a great deal 
of the rarer material. 
Among the important sets are the British 
Museum “Catalogue of Birds,”; Lord Roths- 
child’s “Nivitates Zoologioe,” the “Zo- 
ologist” and the “Ibis.” The latter is in 
the original cloth, bound from the parts, 
with all the covers complete, possibly 
unique in this condition. All of the well 
known monographs — the plovers, the 
thrushes, the i heasants, the swallows, and 
the warblers, as well as many smaller and 
less known monographs — are to be found 
in this collection, and there are more than 
seventy books on the song birds. 
The catalogue of this collection contains 
1 14 pages and includes 2041 lots, each care- 
fully described, frequently followed by long 
notes containing invaluable information for 
the collector. Every collector, or library, 
