62 - [BELON (Pierre)].

[BELON (Pierre)]. [La nature & diversité des poissons, avec leurs pourtraicts, représentez au plus près du naturel]. [Paris], [Charles Estienne], [1555]. Small oblong in-8 of [19 (of 20)] ff. 448 pp. in brown calf, spine with muted ornamentation, double gilt fillet on covers with gilt arms in center (early 20th-century binding). Some rubbing. Title leaf missing, margins of leaves gnawed, with major loss (with loss of a few letters) on the first leaf (epistle to the reader), slight light wetness, a few tears, small black ink stain on a few pages. Bound with the arms of the Turodin family (whose ancestor Joseph Turodin was army surgeon-major under Louis XIV) (Guigard, T.1 p. 459-460). Legal-Thiberge binder's label in Angers. First French edition, translation of De aquatilibus, published in 1553, corresponding to the third enlarged edition, the most complete, illustrated with 193 woodcuts in the text (including the curious ""poisson moine"" p. 33). A precursor of natural history, Pierre Belon (1517-1564) delivers here a treatise describing, according to the knowledge of the time, all the animals classified at the time under the term "fish", including marine mammals, crustaceans, as well as hippopotamuses and otters.