A natural history of reptiles, serpents, and insects
Contributors: Nicholson, Isaac, 1789-1848; Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de, 1707-1788; Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de, 1707-1788; Davison, William, 1780-1858, printer
Publisher: Printed and sold wholesale and retail, by W. Davison
Published: 1819
Place of publication: Alnwick
Language: eng
Number of pages: 36
Subjects: Zoology; Pictorial works; Reptiles; Juvenile literature; Insects; Natural history; Chapbooks; Specimens
Other titles: History of reptiles, serpents, &c; History of insects
Notes: Title vignette.

Vignettes on front and back covers.

"Thirty-five engravings on wood"--t.p.

First sentence: "The land tortoise is found from one to five feet in length, from the end of the snout to the extremety of the tail; and from five to eighteen inches across the back."

One of 7 chapbooks issued by Davison as an abridgement of Buffon's "System of natural history," an itself abridged English translation of his "Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière": Davison, 1814; the chapbooks dated by Tattersfield "around 1819."

The woodcuts have been attributed to Thomas Bewick and his workshop by Hugo (in Bewick collector, p. 109-110); Tattersfield claims nothing in the chapbooks to be by Bewick (in Thomas Bewick, v. 2, p. 935) naming as the probable engraver Isaac Nicholson, a former Bewick apprentice.

The 7 chapbooks sometimes issued together under title: A cabinet of natural history.

Hugo, T.  Bewick collector, 292

Osborne Coll., 209

Tattersfield, N. Thomas Bewick, v. 2, p. 934-935

Wood, C. A. Vertebrate zoology, p. 237