LONG EARED OWL 1850 Birds Oliver Goldsmith ANTIQUE ENGRAVING

Original 1850 9 3/4 inch x 6 1/4 inch Hand-Coloured Engraving Plate XLI LONG EARED OWL

This hand-coloured copper-plate engraving is from Oliver Goldsmith's “A History of the Earth and Animated Nature” (1728-1774). The first edition (in eight volumes) appeared in London in 1774. The work sought to draw together virtually all that was known about the planet earth, its plants and animals, and even its human inhabitants described from a biological perspective. Goldsmith's Animated Nature went through over twenty editions into the Victorian era and served as a popular source of information about the natural world and his work became the source of what countless individuals in the English-speaking world knew about the natural world around them.
Published by Archibald Fullarton and Company a Glasgow based publisher operating towards the end of the nineteenth century. The company produced a number of atlases, and books containing maps, including Fullarton's Parliamentary Gazetteer Of England And Wales and The Royal Illustrated Atlas, Of Modern Geography.

The engraving is in very good condition with slight foxing and age-related toning.