The song birds of Great Britain; containing delineations of thirty-three birds, of the natural size ...

London: Author, 1836.
Octavo, [xiii 137] pp. 33 handcoloured engraved plates, all with tissue guards. Publisher's (?) or early binder's patterned green cloth with gilt title on spine, all edges uncut, a fine crisp copy.

First published as The (resident) song birds of Great Britain in two parts 1835. This is the second issue with both parts combined in a single volume.

"His Song birds of which only a few copies were printed for private circulation, is a work of the utmost rarity in its complete state, and is moreover much esteemed for the fidelity and beauty of its life-size hand coloured plates, drawn by the author..." Mullen and Swan p. 148.

John Cotton (1802-1849) is a significant figure in the history of early Australian ornithology. He was arguably Victoria’s first ornithologist and a skilled observer and painter of wildlife (McEvey 1974). He established a sheep station ‘Doogallook’ on the Goulburn River between the Yea River and King Parrot Creek, in the vicinity of the present day Homewood, and 25 km south-east of Seymour. Cotton was actively interested in Australian birds and intended to publish a birds of Port Phillip with his illustrations. His only Australian publication was in the Tasmanian Journal on Natural Science, 1848.

Nissen, Birds, 206; Mullens & Swann, p. 149. See also McEvey, Allan. John Cotton's birds of the Port Phillip district of New South Wales 1843-1849. Sydney: Collins, 1974.