Lot 3129: GRAY, JOHN EDWARD. 1800-1875.

The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Sulphur, Under the Command of Captain Sir Edward Belcher … During the Years 1836-42. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1843. Nos. 1-2 only ("Mammalia"), bound together. 18 lithographed plates by Waterhouse and Hawkins, 16 of which are hand-colored. Modern gray cloth, spine gilt-lettered, original printed wrappers bound in. A little staining at inner margin, wrappers relaid.

First edition. These first two parts comprise the mammals section of the report. John Edward Gray was keeper of Zoology at the British Museum in London from 1840 until 1874. He published several catalogues of museum collections as well as the present work that include comprehensive discussions of animal groups and descriptions of new species. Gray was the son of a well known pharmacologist and botanist, and assisted his father in writing Arrangement of British Plants (1821). After being blackballed by the Linnean Society he turned his interest from botany to zoology. Nissen ZBI 290.