Author: Bell, W.
Title: Description of the two-horned rhinoceros of Sumatra. [Bound with] Description for a species of Chaetodon, called by the Malays Ecan bonna.
Description: London, The Royal Society, 1793. 4to (27.2 x 20.2 cm). Seven pp. [3-6 and 7-9]; five foldout plates (three to the first and two to the second contribution), all mounted on linen. 20-century boards with printed label mounted on the front board. = The rhinoceros of Sumatra is an elusive animal. One was shot ten miles from Fort Marlborough on the west coast of the island in 1793. William Bell, a young surgeon stationed there, made some drawings of the animal and he wrote a description, which he sent to Joseph Banks, the president of the Royal Society in London, who oversaw that it was published in the Society's Philosophical Transactions, hence the addition to the title, Communicated by sir Joseph Banks. Although the paper was published, the Sumatran rhino was only named twenty years later, in 1814, by Gotthelf Fischer, Director of the Museum of Natural History in Moscow. The subject of the second contribution, a butterfly-fish, is quite extensive and detailed, but not formally described here too. "Ecan bonna", more correctly ikan bona, is the Malay name for Chaetodon arthriticus "Bell" Cuvier. Uncut. Plates linen-backed, and with a small stamp; text pages spotted, in particular marginally. Otherwise very good, clean. Dean I, p. 94 (for Chaetodon). Not in Nissen.

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