Shanghai Birds. A Study of Bird Life in Shanghai and the Surrounding Districts.

Twenty-three full page colour plates, one black and white plate and a sketch, xxi + 243pp, glossary, index. 27 x 18cm. Light offsetting to endpapers, prior owner?s name dated 1932 on the front free endpaper and a partial name at the foot of the title page. Small Chinese ink stamp in the upper corner of the rear pastedown, a couple of gatherings loosening but still holding firm. Green cloth with pictorial decoration in gilt and black on the upper board, spine lettered in gilt. Small bump to the fore-edge of the upper board, head of spine tender with a small closed split. An attractive copy in good order, better than it sounds. "The first part will be found to contain a few chapters intended to show how living birds may be identified by sight and sound, and how their scientific names are arranged, together with a chapter on bird migration . . . The second part contains the descriptions of over one hundred birds, of which about seventy are illustrated in the coloured plates (by famous bird artist - Henrik Gronvold). In these descriptions I have avoided as far as possible all scientific phraseology, in the hope that by so doing any loss of scientific accuracy will be more than made up by ordinary lucidity from the point of view of the average reader." From Introduction.…