meyer] 
BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY 
401 
| Price £2. 12. 6. | London : | Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., 
Stationers’ Court. | 
*** A few Original Copies of the Imperial Quarto Edition of | 
the same work may he had, Price £50 ; and one single Copy on 
| large paper, the last remaining of the Original six, 313 Plates, 
Price £85. 
But copies on large paper were also produced un coloured 
(W.P.L.), and it would appear probable that more than the 
six copies (coloured) above mentioned were in circulation. 1 
The late Professor Newton informed us that he knew of one, 
one is in Lord Lilford’s Library at Oundle, there is one in the 
possession of Major Horace Terry of Compton Grange near 
Guildford,, and one not quite perfect was cited in Quaritch’s 
Catalogue for 1880. 
The eggs figured in the Illustrations were mostly collected 
by the Meyer family, although many were sent by friends. 
This collection is still in the possession of a friend of the 
family. The drawings of eggs were chiefly made by Charles 
Meyer, a clever artist, who also invented a process of stencilling 
the colouring of the figures of both the birds and eggs, thus 
saving much time in the production of both the folio and 
8vo editions, which were all issued in monthly parts. 
In addition to the celebrated Illustrations of British Birds , 
Meyer produced a work on Game Birds, now very scarce, and 
commenced an English edition of Le Vaillant’s Birds of 
Paradise, for which he executed plates of the newly described 
species; This was published in numbers, each containing 
two coloured plates, and was to be finished in fifteen parts. 
This undertaking does not, however, seem to have been 
persevered in, although we have seen two of the plates and 
a portion of the letterpress, as well as a title-page dated 
1838 (Longman & Co.). 
Note. — The following collations in no way pretend to be 
complete. Those of the copies in the Westfield Place Library 
alone, fill a considerable quarto MS. volume, and the whole 
subject is attended with the utmost difficulty, hardly any 
1 We learn that at least 10 copies were actually printed on large paper, although 
only 6 were intended to be issued. 
2 D ’ 
