Lot 80: Dresser's beautifully illustrated work on the rollers

DRESSER, HENRY EELES

A Monograph of the Coraciidae, or Family of the Rollers. Farnborough, Kent: published by the author at Topclyffe Grange, 1893. First edition. Contemporary three-quarters morocco over cloth, the spine richly tooled and lettered in gilt. 15 x 11 1/2 inches (38 x 29 cm); with 27 hand-colored lithographed plates printed by Hanhart heightened with gum arabic by J. G. Keulemans, the title with Dresser's emblem vignette, xix, 111 pp. Wear at head of spine and other shelfwear, ex libris of Henry Arthur John Silley, intermittent spotting to plates.

"A thoroughly detailed study of the [rollers] ... with excellent hand-coloured plates." (Zimmer). Rollers are described as such for the manner in which they occasionally roll and turn over in flight. Dresser issued this monograph as a companion to his earlier monograph on Bee-eaters; that plus his monumental Birds of Europe comprise his three major works. Fine Bird Books, p.92; Nissen IVB 270; Wood, p.324; Zimmer p.178.