Inscription to page 1: 'Herbert H. Smith, the author, was a Cornell graduate, a naturalist, and author of the well-known book: "Brazil - The Amazons and the Coast''. The present book, in Portuguese, has never appeared in English and is little known. It is important to zoologists as giving the itinerary of one of his important collecting expeditions.' G.S. Myers

Herbert Huntingdon Smith (1851-1919) was an American naturalist, specialised in the flora and fauna of Brazil, and amateur conchologist - the study of mollusc shells. It was during his degree at Cornell University that he went to Brazil for the first time, for the 1870 Morgan expedition. Alongside his professor the naturalist C. F. Hartt, he collected a great deal of data about the geography, ethnography, fauna, flora and minerals of Brazil. A few years later, he moved back to Brazil between 1874 and 1876, and then spent a year exploring the Amazon and Tapajos Rivers; upon his return to the United States, he had gathered a large amount of notes and a collection of about one hundred thousand specimens from Brazil. His work "Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast", published in 1879, gives an account of this expedition.
Smith went back to Brazil until 1886 with his wife, also a naturalist. For several years, they explored the continent and continued collecting numerous specimens, especially of insects. Moving back to the United States, he was appointed curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and, later, curator of the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

This work, first published in 1886 in Portuguese, was never translated in English, therefore remained little known. Gathering personal notes, scientific observations and numerous descriptions of the Brazilian flora and fauna, "Do Rio de Janeiro a Cuyaba" relates several years of explorations and discoveries across Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.

The 1922 edition is prefaced by Smith's biography and praise by the Brazilian historian Capistrano de Abreu. A chapter, dedicated to the Mato Grosso state of Brazil, was written by the German ethnologist and anthropologist Karl von den Steinen, specialist in the Indian cultures of Central Brazil.

Dr. George Sprague Myers, who previously owned this copy, was an American scientist. He spent most of his career at Stanford University, and became one of the leading American ichthyologists - specialised in the study of fish - of the twentieth century.

Small 8vo (18 x 15 cm) 372 pp, manuscript inscription by previous owner on preliminary blank page, publisher's blue printed wrappers bound in later dark blue morocco marbled boards, upper hinge split but holding, otherwise very good.