Flying Squirrel Art

Introduction and Zoology of New York or the New York Fauna, Part I, Mammalia by James E. De Kay, New York Natural History Survey, Albany: W. & A. White and J. Visscher, 1842.

First edition, Quarto, pp. 146, 35 engraved and lithographed plates including 29 hand colored plates of mammals, and 6 b&w plates, including 2 of the Croton Aqueduct. In original (?) red decorative boards. Engraving by Packard, Garit and Company, Albany and lithography by Endicott of New York. Illustrations by J. W. Hill. Exceedingly rare as only 300 copies were made in a colored state. The rariety of this volume in the NY Natural History series is equaled only by the color plate versions of Reptiles/Fish and Botany, which were also limited to 300 copies each (see Ellis, Index to Publications of the New York Natural History Survey and State Museum, for details). Not listed in Bennett's Practical Guide to American 19th Century Color Plate Books, which further underscores its rariety (Bennett erroneously attributed De Kay's Birds volume as being limited to 300 colored copies; Ellis does not indicate this and all copies I've seen listed have color plates).