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Michigan State University

British Studies: the 18th Century, a Guide to Topics in the MSU Libraries' Collections: NATURAL HISTORY, SCIENCE IN GENERAL, AND OTHER TOPICS RELATED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE AND GARDENING

This is a guide to 18th-century British studies materials, particularly in our Special Collections and Rare Books unit.

NATURAL HISTORY, SCIENCE IN GENERAL, AND OTHER TOPICS RELATED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE AND GARDENING

The books on natural history address Asia, the Atlantic states, Australia, Canada, the Canadian Northwest, China, Egypt, England, Indonesia, Lapland, Louisiana, New South Wales, North Carolina, South Africa, and the United States. Englishmen and other Europeans made discoveries about natural history all over the globe, in conjunction with exploration and discovery of unknown lands. There are also general and pre-Linnean natural history works. There are many works on forests and forestry, forestry law, forest management, trees, tree planting, tree diseases and pests, wounds and injuries to trees, oak, willows, wood, and timber. Also present books are on hunting, rifles, pigeons, fox hunting, game and game-birds, and game laws. Represented, too, are works on poisons, toxicology, venom, venoms, and the psychological effect of venom. There are works on the seasons, including poetry, and books on the folklore of weather and weather forecasting. Works on invertebrates, llamas, marine animals in Britain, Lepidoptera or butterflies, cage birds, canaries, caterpillars, bird pests, birds' eggs and nests, birds in the British Isles and in the United States, and pictorial works on birds. Completing this part of the Collection are works on anatomy, biology, zoology, technology, scientific recreations, scientific expeditions, a catalog of scientific apparatus and instruments, science periodical and society works, and biographies of scientists.

Interesting titles in this portion of Murray and Hong Special Collections include the following: William Forsyth's Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and Injuries in All Kinds of Fruit and Forest Trees (1791); Peter Beckford's Thoughts on Hunting, in a Series of Familiar Letters to a Friend (1781); Richard Mead's Mechanical Account of Poisons in Several Essays (1702); and James Edward Smith's Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia... (1797).