Voyage a la Nouvelle Guinee, dans lequel on trouve la description des Lieux, des Observations physiques & morales, & des details relatifs a l'Histoire Naturelle dans le regne animal & le regen vegetal

Paris: Chez Ruault. 1776. 1st edition, sm quarto. text in French, pp.206, (ii), complete with half-title, finely engraved frontispiece and 120 engraved plates of which plates 90 and 91 are on one plate, 6 plates folding, light offsetting, scattered light foxing, 'Roehampton’ in ink on preliminary blank and another contemporary prev. owner's ink inscr on verso half-title 'Holbrook?, 12 January 1780', bookplate of Western Australian anthropologist (D'Arcy Ryan), loosely inserted folded manuscript map on tracing paper (possibly made by Ryan) showing a route from Ceylon to the Philippines, around Borneo to Timor and then onto Mauritius, hand made marbled e.p.s, and all edges marbled, professionally rebacked, original contemporary French binding of patterned calf sides, a little worn otherwise, very good condition First edition of Sonnerat's first voyage to New Guinea and the FIRST depiction of the Australian 'Kookaburra' drawn from a specimen collected by Sir Joseph Banks. An account of his (Sonnerat) voyage pertaining to the study of birds and botanical plants discovered during the French expedition of 1769-74 to explore New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippine Islands. Although most of the text's copper engravings are marked "P. Sonnerat Pinx" (as artist) and "C. Baquey Sculp" (as engraver), the nutmeg prints are not marked. It is known that in April 1771 during a mission to the Cape of Good Hope, Sonnerat encountered the H.M.S. Endeavour under the command of Captain James Cook. Sonnerat viewed the specimens which Joseph Banks had collected on the east coast of Australia, including the laughing Kookaburra. Banks presented the specimen as a gift to Sonnerat. Upon returning to France, Sonnerat presented the Kookaburra skin to Edme-Louis Daubenton and Francois-Nicolas Martinet who illustrated the bird and produced the plate for his book (plate 106). This is one of the very earliest Australian animals to be described by European scientists and one of the earliest printed depictions of an Australian bird. The laughing kookaburra, wrongly identified by Sonnerat as the "Grand Martin-Pecheur de la nouvelle Guinee" (large Kingfisher from New Guinea) was to acquire its incorrect but lasting scientific name Dacelo novaguineae. 1st edition. Calf.