COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE ECHALAZ COLLECTION. By Lieut.-Colonel Echalaz. Late Indian Army.

1907 1st edition. 8vo (150 x 220mm). Ppii,325. Frontispiece portrait, b/w plates. Blue-green cloth, upper board and spine titled in gilt.

A detailed account of the bird collection assembled by Lt. Colonel Charles Theodore Echalaz at the turn of the twentieth century. The collection was donated to the local council at Waterloo, Liverpool, to be displayed in the Waterloo Museum, attached to the, then, new Carnegie Library. "My object in offering this collection as a free gift to a public institution was, that all the labour and expense that has been expended on it might not be thrown away, but that the Museum Room might prove a valuable adjunct o the Carnegie Library, and not only serve a useful purpose from an educational point of view, but also afford to all those who are fond of ornithology an opportunity of whiling away an hour or so very pleasantly." Together with ornithological notes, Echalaz also gives some details as to how and where the specimens for each case were obtained. The collection sustained a direct hit during a bombing raid in 1941, and was further damaged in a burglary in the 1980's. It remained in storage for some years. In 2012 the collection was donated to the British Historical Taxidermy Society Trust. A recent (2007) account of the state of the collection was written by Adrian Sailor and published by MPM Publishing, our stock number 19655.