Falconry in the British Isles.

London: John Van Voorst,, 1855. The best English book on falconry First edition of Francis Salvin's first work, with attractive illustrations by the falconer William Brodrick, himself the owner of a remarkable collection of working birds. Salvin's (1817-1904) lifetime of devotion to the sport lead his fellow falconer C. H. Fisher to call him "the father of the craft in England" (p. 178). "Salvin's early love of hawking was stimulated by an acquaintance with John Tong, a one-time assistant falconer to Colonel Thomas Thornton. In the manner of Thornton, he made a highly successful hawking tour of northern England in 1843 with John Pells (then in the pension of the hereditary grand falconer of England)" (ODNB). When serving with his regiment in Ireland in 1855, Salvin flew peregrine falcons at rooks and tiercels at magpies. William Brodrick (1814-1888) owned "most, if not all, of the hawks and falcons usually employed in modern falconry. Under his care, examples of the Greenland, Iceland, and Norwegian gerfalcons, sakers, and lanners lived for years, a source of admiration to all who saw them" (Fisher). The stones for Brodrick's plates were destroyed after publication, so they had to be redrawn for the second edition (1873). The plates in the first edition are celebrated as "much superior" (Harting). Quarto. Original green cloth, neatly rebacked with original spine laid down, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, vignette of stooping Barbary Falcon in gilt on front cover, similar vignette and title in blind on rear board, light yellow coated endpapers, edges untrimmed. With 2 hand-coloured and tissue-guarded lithograph frontispieces heightened with gum arabic, 22 similar plates, all by Brodrick and printed by Ford & West; 4 pp. of publisher's advertisements at end. Recent pencilled initials on front free endpaper recto. Cloth sunned, gilt vignette bright, wear to tips, text and plates lightly foxed: a very good copy. Harting 67; Nissen, IVB 147; Schwerdt II, p. 145; Souhart 419; Wood, p. 541; not in Thiebaud. C. H. Fisher, Reminiscences of a Falconer, 1901.