[ANGLING]

HOUGHTON, WILLIAM. British Fresh Water Fishes. London: William Mackenzie, [1879]. First edition. Two volumes, decorative publisher's brick textured cloth over beveled boards with black-, gilt-, and blind-stamped piscatorial vignettes and motifs on boards and spines. 14 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches (36.75 x 27 cm); 204 pp., Illustrated with 41 fine chromoxylographed plates of fish engraved by Benjamin Fawcett after drawings by A.F. Lydon, and numerous steel-engraved plates of angling locales. Light spotting, light wear to extremities, an attractive set.

Houghton, a Shropshire clergyman, aimed his book at the fisherman rather than the naturalist, and the text (of which there is, unusually, plenty) gives information about recognition, feeding and breeding habits, habitat, bait and so on" (Buchanan, Nature into Art, 168). Alexander Francis Lydon's plates, which were printed by Benjamin Fawcett, show each fish in what is meant to be its natural habitat. For this work, Houghton studied the specimens in the collection of the British Museum. British Fresh-Water Fishes is notable for its incorporation of the naturalistic backgrounds of the fish habitats.

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