First edition in book form of this attractive volume, written and illustrated by one of the foremost science popularisers of the Victorian era and originally published in parts between 1858 and 1860.

Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1888) first came to prominence with scientific works on the ecology of Canada and Jamaica. A series of successful books for the general public followed and in 1853 he published A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast, 'which brought before the public the science of marine biology, and was partly responsible for the sea-shore craze of the mid-Victorian period... Much of Gosse's success was due to the fact that he was essentially a field naturalist who was able to impart to his readers something of the thrill of studying living animals at first hand... In addition to this he was a skilled draughtsman who was able to illustrate his books himself. Indeed the chromolithographic plates in The Aquarium and Actinologia Britannica were prepared from his own watercolours and were a major advance in natural history book illustration intended for the mass market' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

First edition; 8vo (21.5 x 13 cm); colour frontispiece & 12 plates of which 11 are printed in colour, engravings within the text, bound without the publisher's ads and tissue guards, later ownership inscription to the front blank, spotting to the endpapers and blanks, a little offsetting from the plates, contents faintly toned; contemporary green half morocco, green bead grain cloth sides, spine elaborately gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers and edges, binding rubbed at the extremities, very good condition; 362pp.

Freeman (British Natural History Books), 1390.