Legge (W. Vincent). A History of the Birds of Ceylon, London: published by the author, 1880. 4to (325 x 250 mm), contemporary black half morocco, spine gilt in compartments, green cloth sides, top edge dyed green, others untrimmed, xlvi 1237 pp. colour-printed wood-engraved map, 33 hand-coloured lithographic plates by J. G. Keulemans (heightened in gum arabic), wood-engraved key plate, chromolithographic oological plate, bookplate of Eric Hosking, closed marginal tear to foot of 2U3, a few trivial spots to text (qty: 1)

THE LIBRARY, PICTURES & CAMERA COLLECTION OF ERIC HOSKING OBE HON. FRPS FBIPP (1909-1991)

Anker 284 ('A complete and important monograph'); Zimmer pp. 382-3 ('The hand-coloured plates are very fine').

Legge 'was commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1862 and served with the imperial troops in Melbourne in 1867-68. He was then stationed in Ceylon where he pursued his studies of natural history, to which he had long been devoted. As secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society he reorganized the dilapidated museum at Colombo. He also continued the ornithological work begun by Edgar Layard and made an immense collection of birds. He left Ceylon in 1877 ... Legge was a fellow of the Geographical Society and a member of the Zoological Society of London, the Linnean Society and the British and American Ornithologists' Unions and a founder and president of the Australasian Ornithologists' Union' (ADB).