Enchiridion Historiae Naturalis inserviens, quo termini et delineationes ad Avium, Piscium, Insectorum et Plantarum adumbrationes intelligendas et concinnandas, secundum Methodum Systematis Linnaeani continentur..

An attractive copy of this very scarce publication, not recorded by the Cook bibliographers Beddie or Holmes, and very important for the natural history of Australia and the southern hemisphere. Forster's manual on biological classification is based on the new species and genera seen by him and his son while naturalists on Cook's second voyage. Forster discusses the voyage in detail, and describes how parts of the work were composed during it. The text is intended to accommodate the significant expansion of the natural kingdom, and particularly the problems of description and classification arising from antipodean species. It presents a vivid picture of the collecting activities, methods, and constraints of the two naturalists.

'We have several useful post-voyage statements concerning the way in which Forster and his scientific team worked. One of the most valuable of these is contained in Forster senior's dedication to his son of his book Enchiridion... which contains short diagnoses of the genera of birds, fishes, insects and plants collected on the voyage... If we take the Enchiridion as the first source of our scientific evidence it is clear that Forster had resolved upon a precise programme of scientific and anthropological investigations... "My task", states Forster, "was to examine with the greatest care all of nature, lands, rocks, metals, streams and seas, unknown mountains, the composition of the atmosphere, and its changes, the plants and animals, whatever were there, and to describe more accurately new discoveries and see that they were sketched"...' (Michael E. Hoare, The 'Resolution' Journal of Johann Reinhold Forster, Hakluyt Society, 1982; Hoare includes an extensive discussion of and quotes from the Enchiridion).