The Zoology of Captain Beechey's Voyage; compiled from the collections and notes made by Captain Beechey, the officers and naturalist of the expedition, during a voyage to the Pacific and Behring's Straits performed in His Majesty's Ship Blossom... in the Years 1825, 26, 27, and 28.

First Edition.

London: Howlett & Son for Henry G. Bohn, 1839. 4° (285 x 223mm). 44 hand-coloured engraved plates after Edward Lear, J.D.C. Sowerby, J.C. Zeitter; by T.Landseer and Zeitter, unrecorded uncoloured plate of sea urchins, 3 hand-coloured engraved maps after Belcher, including one folding sheet with a hand-coloured engraved map on one third and a series of five hand-coloured engraved geological sectional views on the other two thirds, a little discolouration but a handsome copy of the first edition of this important work with an unrecorded plate numbered 45.

The notes are by John Richardson (mammalia), Nichols Vigors (birds), George Lay and Edward Bennett (fish), Richard Owen (crustacea), William Buckland (geology), and John Gray (reptiles and mollusks).

The collections and notes were done during the Blossom’s four-year voyage to the Pacific and Bering’s Strait. As Beechey explains in the Introduction, the appearance of this work was long frustrated and it was only after a full eight years that it saw publication. In no uncertain terms, he states “that it [the delay] has been occasioned entirely by Mr. Gray’s failing to furnish his part in spite of every intercession from myself and others…”

Arctic Bib. 1231; Forbes 1176; Hill 96; Howes R-259; Lada-Mocarski 105; Sabin 71032; Wickersham 6825.