By Arthur Cowell Stark, M.B.
A scarce complete portion of the six-volume work The Fauna of South Africa, these four volumes being devoted to birds found south of the Zambezi and Cunene rivers, the other two volumes of the complete set cover the mammals of South Africa, and are not here offered. Volumes one and two were written by Arthur Stark, the second completed from the manuscript and notes of the author discovered after his death, in part in Durban, and amongst his effects in Ladysmith, and edited by W.L. Sclater, the Director of the South African Museum,Cape Town. At the outbreak of the Boer War, Arthur Stark volunteered his medical services to the besieged town of Ladysmith. On the evening of November 10th, 1899, he was killed by a shell while he was standing at the door of the Royal Hotel. Volumes three and four are the work of Sclater, who did however make use of notes made by Stark.
All published by R.H. Porter, volume one in 1900. This volume deals with the Passerines and covers twelve of the twenty South African families, 322 pages including index. The title page declares a map and illustrations, though no map is present in this volume. All volumes are in original worn green cloth with the gilt stamped crest (since modified) of the South African Museum, and gilt spine titling. The rear cover of volume one has patches of soil, and foxed endpapers. Volume two, published 1901,323 pages including index, contains a frontispiece portrait of Arthur Stark, and an intact folding map in the rear, followed by four pages of publisher's advertisements. Volume three, 416 pages including index, covers Picarians, Parrots, Owls and Hawks, and was published in 1903. Volume four, published 1906, 545 pages including index, lists the game-birds, shore-birds and sea-birds. The last three volumes contain a stamp of the James Humphrey Collection, two of which have been overstamped with "Withdrawn". All illustrated with several drawings and photographs by noted ornithologists such as Austin Roberts.
