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Captain Thomas Williamson, Oriental Field Sports: Being a Complete and Accurate Description of the Wild Sports of the East: and exhibiting, in a novel and interesting manner, the natural history of the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the leopard, the bear, the deer, the buffalo, the wolf, the wild hog, the jackall, the wild dog, the civet, and other undomesticated animals, as likewise the different species of feathered game, fishes and serpents: the whole interspersed with a variety of original, authentic, and curious anecdotes ... the scenery gives a faithful representation of the picturesque country, together with the manners and customs of both the native and European inhabitants: the narrative is divided into forty heads, forming collectively a complete work, but so arranged that each part is a detail of one of the forty coloured engravings. The whole taken from the manuscript and designs of Captain Thomas Williamson ... ; the drawings by Samuel Howett [sic], London: for H R Young by J M'Creery, 1819, second edition

2 volumes bound in 1
Vol. I: Title page; Dedication leaf; Preface pp. [i]–xiv; List of Plates pp. [xv]–xvi; descriptive text pp. 1–306.
Vol. II: Title page; text pp. 1–239, 12 index pages. With 40 fine hand-coloured aquatint plates by Samuel Howitt, after drawings by the author, interleaved with text and printed on wove paper, watermarked 1818 and 1819.
Full original green Morocco, gilt tooled back, gilt border on sides, gilt edges. Housed in a cloth folding case with gilt text at the spine.
12 x 9.25 in (31 x 23.5 cm)

LIST OF PLATES

VOLUME I
1. Engraved vignette title / 2. Beating Sugar Cane for a Hog / 3. The Chase after a Hog / 4. Hog-Hunters meeting by surprise a Tigress & her Cubs / 5. The Hog at Bay / 6. The Dead Hog / 7. The Return from Hog-Hunting / 8. Driving Elephants into a Keddah / 9. Decoy Elephants catching a Male / 10. Decoy Elephants leaving the Male fastened to a tree / 11. A Rhinoceros hunted by Elephants / 12. A Tiger prowling through a village / 13. Shooting a Tiger from a platform / 14. A Tiger seizing a Bullock in a Pass / 15. Driving a Tiger out of a Jungle / 16. Chasing a Tiger across a river / 17. The Tiger at Bay / 18. A Tiger springing upon an Elephant / 19. The Dead Tiger / 20. Shooters coming by surprise upon a Tiger

VOLUME II
21. Engraved vignette title / 22. A Tiger hunted by Wild Dogs / 23. A Tiger killed by a poisoned arrow / 24. Shooting a Leopard in a Tree / 25. Exhibition of a battle between a Buffalo and a Tiger / 26. The Buffalo at Bay / 27. Peacock-shooting / 28. Shooting at the edge of a jungle / 29. Driving a Bear out of Sugar Canes / 30. Death of the Bear / 31. Hunting a Kuttauss, or a Civet Cat / 32. Hunting Jackalls / 33. Chase after a Wolf / 34. The Common Wolf Trap / 35. Smoking Wolves from their Earths / 36. The Ganges breaking its banks: with fishing & c. / 37. Killing Game in Boats / 38. Dooreahs or Dog Keepers leading out Dogs / 39. Syces, or Grooms, leading out Horses / 40. Hunting a Hog Deer / 41. The Hog Deer at Bay

EMBELLISHED WITH A SUPERB FORE-EDGE PAINTING OF THE COLOURED AQUATINT "THE TIGER AT BAY"

When the leaves are spread fan-like, the painting appears; when the volume is closed, the painting disappears beneath the gilt. The aquatint plate from which the fore-edge was taken appears on page 252 of volume one.

Captain Thomas Williamson served for two decades with a British regiment in Bengal, during which time he made extensive sketches and notes on the flora, fauna, sports, and social customs of India. His deep familiarity with Indian field life and wildlife, combined with keen observational detail, came to the attention of the enterprising Orme family—renowned publishers of illustrated works—who commissioned the English sporting artist Samuel Howitt to translate Williamson’s drawings into a striking visual narrative.

The resulting collaboration, Oriental Field Sports, first published in 20 parts between 1805 and 1807, is among the most ambitious visual records of British India. The 41 aquatint plates, executed after Howitt’s watercolours, portray thrilling encounters with tigers, rhinoceroses, crocodiles, and majestic elephants—described by Williamson as possessing “the energy of the horse, the sagacity of the dog, and a large portion of the monkey's cunning.” Each plate is accompanied by a corresponding anecdotal chapter, often infused with personal experience and rich ethnographic detail.

As noted in the author’s preface, the work is “offered to the public, not merely as a book of sports, but as illustrative of the manners, customs, scenery, and costume of a territory now intimately blended with the British Empire.” More than a record of exotic hunting exploits, the volume conveys the rhythms of colonial life and Anglo-Indian interaction in a period of expanding imperial authority.

Williamson’s broader literary contribution includes The East India Vade-Mecum (1810), a practical travel guide for new arrivals in India, further testifying to his role as an early interpreter of British experience on the subcontinent.

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