TURNER, William.

Avium praecipuarum, quarum apud Plinium et Aristotelem mentio est, brevis & succincta historia.

      Cologne: Johannes Gymnicus, 1544. - Small 8vo, 19th century calf-backed marbled paper over boards. Without the final blank leaf. First edition of the first book devoted to birds. Written while he was in exile in Germany (after being imprisoned in England for preaching without a license), TurnerÕs work is an attempt to determine the identification of birds described in Aristotle and Pliny. Not surprisingly, his work contains numerous errors and misidentifications, and he was not immune to certain myths about birds Ð such as the spontaneous generation of the barnacle goose on pieces of driftwood, or the notion that goatsuckers suck the teats of goats at night. But most of his identifications are good, born of close observation. For instance: I think that AristotleÕs Spinus is our Grenefinc, for it lives for the most part among thorns, and feeds upon the seeds of grasses. The bird which I believe to be the Spinus in its size equals a Sparrow, and is wholly green, and in this kind the male especially, the female being somewhat pale. It feeds upon the seeds of the bigger thistles and of burdocks and it nests on the branches of the willow or wild plum. In his Peroration to the Reader Turner relates that he wrote the book in two months, and that it would have been more thorough but for lack of money: For who without great command of money can set off for distant regions, to observe the forms and habits of foreign birds, and there to stay a long time for that purpose. Be that as it may, A. H. Evans, who translated TurnerÕs book in 1903, writes that [Turner] produced the first book on birds which treats them in anything like the modern scientific spiritnor is it too much to say that almost every page bears witness to a personal knowledge of the subject, which would be distinctly creditable even to a modern ornithologist. Turner was an extraordinary naturalist; not only did he write the first book on birds, but his New Herball, published in three volumes between 1551 and 1568, is the first systematic attempt to describe the flora of England. A very good copy, with only a few scattered light stains. Rare: the only copies recorded in the United States are at Harvard, Cornell, Trinity College, and the University of Kansas.