WIEDEMANN, C.R.W

Archiv fur Zoologie und Zootomie.

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Vossischen Buchhandlung Berlin, 1800. Octavo, with four plates; some rubbing to spine and joints, but a handsome copy in original paper boards, fragment of earlier paper label to head of spine. An early and attractive German natural history journal, with a plate and several-page essay on the 'newly discovered mammal', Platypus anatinus, as well as a note on the former Leverian Museum of natural history in London.

The detailed note on the platypus has no author attributed, but was most likely written by the editor himself, Christian Rudolph Wilhelm Wiedemann, a German physician, naturalist and entomologist. The text borrows explicitly from the description of the platypus in George Shaw's Naturalist's Miscellany of 1799, recognised as the first scientific notice on the rare monotreme. Indeed, although newly executed for this German journal, the engraving is self-evidently based on Nodder's famous image in Shaw's work, which depicted the specimen in the Dobson collection in London.

The first printed notice of the platypus had been in the Account of the English Colony by David Collins (1797), after specimens had been sent to England by John Hunter. In Europe, the animal was considered so unlikely that for many years it was rumoured to be an imposture. It was not until 1802 that this was disproved, when the English scientist Everard Home dissected a complete specimen.

This volume is also of particular interest for a four-page notice of James Parkinson's museum of natural history in London, formerly the Leverian Museum. The Leverian was famous for its natural history, especially the many lots collected in the South Seas by Captain Cook and others. Parkinson's museum closed in 1806, in a famous auction that lasted some sixty-five days, and contemporary references to it such as this one are scarce.

This is the first volume of this journal. The Archiv für Zoologie und Zootomie had only a short run, apparently disbanding in 1806; any volume from the work is now quite rare.

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• librero: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)