Sold for $1,875

13 parts in one volume, 8vo (200 x 157 mm). First title printed in red and black; engraved vignette headpieces; 40 copper engraved plates (many folding). (Some overall browning.) Contemporary mottled calf gilt, red morocco lettering-piece gilt (hinges starting). Provenance: Theodoor Gerard van Lidth de Jeude (1788-1863) Dutch physician and zoologist (bookplate); N. A. Hamner (bookplate); Bengt-Olof Landin (1925-2006), Swedish professor of systematic zoology at Lund University (bookplate). 

FIRST EDITIONS OF THE FIRST IMPORTANT GERMAN TREATISE ON INSECTS, issued over the course of 18 years, describing nearly 300 different insects, with most of the plates engraved from Frisch's own drawings by his son Philip Jacob.  "Frisch was a careful and diligent observer... He takes one insect at a time, describes its external features, figures it in all stages, if possible, and tells all that he has been able to discover about its mode of life" (Miall pp. 240-1).