8vo. viii, 272 pp., half title, later half morocco, rubbed round edges, title gilt on raised spine, original printed wrappers preserved, biblio, errata, some foxing mainly to end leaves and outer margins, otherwise copy in good condition, Auguste Ghio Editeurs, Paris, first edition, 1879.

Synopsis

A good association copy of a ‘work which no student of the history of Falconry should neglect’. (Harting). Gives Chronological list of the grand falconers of France. Extracts showing the expenses attending the maintenance of hawking in France from the household accounts of the court of France.
Louis Magaud d’Aubusson (1847-1917) was a French ornithologist. Doctor in law, he joined the National Society of Acclimatisation of France in 1880 and became the archivist from 1887 to 1892, then the administrator and president of the ornithology section in 1907; a passionate hunter of water fowls and falconry, he became first known by his work devoted to waterfowl hunting and the biology of raptors. He was also an honorary member of the Egyptian Institute in Cairo and author of a well-known work on quail hunting in Egypt. On January 26, 1912, he became the first president of the League for the Protection of Birds and remained in that position until his death. He intervened to stop the slaughter of the puffins on the Sept Îles archipelago off Perros- Guirec, Brittany.
He is the author of numerous ornithological monographs (including Les corvidés, 1883, and Les gallinacés d’Asie, Paris, 1886), besides his important work on the history of falconry.
He published several articles in the French Journal of Ornithology, the Journal of Applied Natural Sciences and the Bulletin of the National Society of Acclimatisation.
Bibliographic reference: Harting 211; Schwerdt II, pp.2-3; Thiébaud 621.