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a)
ALLAN HUME ed., The Game Birds of India, Burma and Ceylon, Calcutta: A O Hume and C H T Marshall, 1879-1881

(Set of 3 Volumes)
Volume I: ii; 279 pages including 45 hand-coloured lithographed plates. Published in 1879 this volume is dedicated to ducks, swans and geese
Volume II: 264 pages including 44 hand-coloured lithographed plates. Published in 1880 this volume is dedicated to snipe, bustards and sand-grouse)
Volume III: 438 pages including 54 hand-coloured lithographed plates; 4 famous colour egg plates and 6 index pages. Published in 1881 this volume is dedicated to pheasants and bustard-quail
In original green boards with gilt-stamped peacock illustrations on front boards of each volume; gilt lettering and ruling on front boards and spines; blind-stamped on rear boards.
26.5 x 16.5 x 3.5 cm (each)

One of the classics of ornithology literature and the definitive volumes on the game birds of the Indian subcontinent.

Allan Octavian Hume (1829 - 1912) was a Scottish civil servant and reformer who arrived in India in 1849 and joined the Bengal Civil Service in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh and thereafter, rose steadily in the ranks. After retiring in 1882, he was instrumental in the birth of the Indian National Congress.

In India, Hume embarked on an ambitious project to document the birds of the subcontinent, leading to the largest Asiatic collection of birds housed in his home in Simla. His work resulted in a publication, and his collection of more than 80,000 specimens was eventually donated to London's British Museum (Natural History), now the Natural History Museum, in 1874. Hume also founded a journal titled Stray Feathers, and he is sometimes referred to as the father of Indian ornithology.

The present lot, a set of three volumes, is the second edition of a definitive classic on Indian ornithology edited by Hume, and contains superior plates and new material. In the introduction to the first volume, the author states that the present work is essentially a new one since it "adds a considerable amount of matter not obtainable by me when writing in India."

b)
STUART BAKER, Indian Pigeons and Doves, London: Witherby and Co., 1913

xv; 260 pages including colour frontispiece and an additional twenty-six colour plates. From drawings by H Gronvold and G E Lodge
Half green morocco leather-bound with matching cloth boards, gilt spine with 5 raised bands
27 x 19 x 14.5 cm

c)
STUART BAKER, The Indian Ducks and their Allies, London, Calcutta & Simla, and Bombay: The Bombay Natural History Society, 1908

292 pages with 30 chromolithograph plates, additional pictorial title page, half-title
Half green morocco with matching cloth boards, spine gilt and 5 raised bands
27.5 x 19.5 x 4 cm
This book is limited to 1000 copies

Edward Charles Stuart Baker (1864 - 1944) was a British ornithologist and police officer, and became known as the foremost authority on the birds of India after spending many years in the country as part of the Assam Police. He was an excellent huntsman and sniper, and his obituary describes some of his escapades in India, where he had many opportunities of indulging in his love for sport and natural history. He shot much big game and lost his left arm from an encounter with a leopard. This animal had killed several natives in a village near Silchar... Twice he was tossed by a bison, and trampled underfoot by a rhinoceros. Despite the disability of the loss of his arm he remained an excellent shot, even at snipe, and was also a good tennis player till recent years, winning a local tournament as late as 1937. (Ibis, 1944, Wiley Online Library, online)

It was in India that Baker also began collecting eggs and skins, researching ornithology and writing for Ibis and the Bombay Natural History Society. These papers were later compiled into a three-volume set of books published in London. Baker returned to London from India in 1911, where he served as the Chief Police Officer of the Port of London Police until his retirement in 1925. He is the author of numerous books on ornithology such as those included in lots 50 and 51 - and part of his collection of nearly 50,000 birds' eggs collected in India was donated to various museums.