SOWERBY, Arthur de Carle.

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The Naturalist in Manchuria. First editions, first impressions, of the author's magnum opus, presenting the results of his four expeditions to Manchuria between 1913 and 1915.This monumental work is split into five sections, covering travel and exploration, mammals, birds, cold-blooded vertebrates, and invertebrates and flora. Sowerby (1885-1954) collected in many parts of Manchuria not previously visited by Western naturalists, and he sent most of his specimens to the Smithsonian Institution.A leading naturalist of his day, Sowerby was born in Taiyuan, Shanxi, the son of a Baptist missionary. In the early 20th century, he began collecting specimens for the Taiyuan museum of natural history, and subsequently joined the zoological Bedford expedition in 1906. Two years later, he was appointed by Robert Sterling Clark, the heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, to lead an expedition to Shanxi and Gansu, the fruits of which were published as Through Shên-kan: the Account of the Clark Expedition in North China, 1908-9 (1912). Having served with the Chinese Labour Corps during the First World War, he returned to China and settled in Shanghai, where he founded the China Journal of Science and Arts. In 1949, he emigrated to the US and spent the remainder of his life in Washington.Provenance: ex-Trinity College Watkinson Library (Hartford, CT), with its Ostrom Enders Ornithological Collection accession bookplate and cancellation overstamp on the front pastedowns. The Enders collec

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