There are numerous bibliographies of works upon all classes of animals, fish, flesh, and fowl—even the good red herring.[86] For these you must turn to Mr. W. P. Courtney's invaluable work. The 'Bibliographia Zoologiae et Geologiae, a General Catalogue of all Books on Zoology and Geology,' was compiled by L. Agassiz and H. E. Strickland for the Ray Society—four octavo volumes, published between 1848 and 1854. A 'Bibliotheca Entomologica,' by H. A. Hagen, appeared at Leipzig, two octavo volumes, in 1862-63.
Nautical and Naval.
42. The next subject, Nautical and Naval, will comprise chiefly borrowings from other headings; for it will necessarily include books of voyages and discoveries, works on navigation, meteorology, and oceanography, as well as geographical books, and such purely nautical volumes as dictionaries of the marine, the history of ships and shipping, and accounts of the navy and mercantile fleet. There is a number of early works on the astrolabe and globes, but you must not expect easily to come across 'The Rutter of the Sea,' printed by Robert Copland and Richard Bankes in 1528. It is the first English printed book on Navigation, being a translation of 'Le Grand Routier' of Pierre Garcie.
The Society for Nautical Research was founded in 1910, and it issues a monthly journal known as 'The Mariner's Mirror,' wherein are treated those subjects which pertain to the history of ships, sails, and rigging; in fact, everything that has to do with the evolution of the ship. The original 'Mariner's Mirrour' was a translation (by Anthony Ashley in 1588) of Wagenaar's 'Speculum Nauticum,' first published in 1583. Needless to say, it is a scarce work, as are all these Elizabethan volumes upon seafaring. In volume iv. of the 'Cambridge History of English Literature' you will find two chapters on the literature of the sea from the pens of those great authorities Commander C. N. Robinson and Mr. John Leyland. If this be your subject, they will amply repay perusal. There is an excellent list of early works, pages 453 to 462.
Numismatics.
43. Numismatics is one of those subjects which generally engage the attentions of students rather than book-collectors, for the volumes upon coins and medals are necessarily text-books for the collector of these things. Such works are, of course, for the most part illustrated; and some of the older ones are of considerable interest on account of their engravings.
It is not only to the collector and 'curious antiquary,' however, that some of these works are valuable, for in them occasionally the historian is able to unearth matter scarcely obtainable elsewhere. Menestrier's 'Histoire du Roy Louis le Grand par les Medailles, Emblemes, Deuises, Jettons, Inscriptions, Armoiries, et autres Monumens Publics' (folio, Paris, 1693) is one of many such works. It not only contains engravings of every medal struck to commemorate the birth, life, marriage, actions, victories, processions, and entertainments of the Roi-Soleil (among them one commemorating the Siege of Londonderry in 1689), but it has a very fine folding plate of the Place des Victoires as it was in 1686. This engraving not only shows the famous monument erected to the glory of Louis xiv., and destroyed at the Revolution, but gives the details of the panels and a very full description of it. Thus we may have to hand all the inscriptions, mottoes, and dates which were graven upon that historic monument.
Occult.
44. Civilisation mates but ill with Romance, and for the passing of Superstition (the child of Imagination and Romance) none can shed a tear. Yet at least it served to raise our daily lives out of the rut of commonplace. Our pulses are no longer stirred at the mere mention of the word magic, and even black magic is coldly discussed where not so very long ago none would have dared to speak it save with 'bated breath.' Yet we are all mystics by birth, and scarce one of us there is who as a child has not experienced the fear of darkness. We cannot explain it, and though the child may soon be taught to laugh at his fear, yet none the less was he endowed with this unaccountable dread of the unknown.
Among real book-collectors probably this particular branch of specialism attracts but few; for the greater part of those who collect such works are students of the occult (whether serious or idle) and have no true love for their books quâ books. Seemingly it is an absorbing hobby, for those who devote their attention to necromancy soon become known among their friends.