Rare first and only edition of an anonymously published work on fabulous animals, discussing their zoological status. While describing several of these mythical creatures and their history, the author also tries to determine their zoological status by comparing the mythical animals with real ones. The work draws its information from Linnaeus's taxonomy as well as several Wunderkammer collections (for example those by the Dutch apothecary and zoologist Albertus Seba and the German-Dutch classical scholar and librarian Johann Friedrich Gronovius). A large part of the work is devoted to reptiles, but it also discusses some species of fish and birds, and in the last chapter some insects, worms, arthropods (for example scorpions) and mammals (for example a cat). In ten chapters, the author not only describes mythical animals, like dragons, basilisks, sea-dragons, a two-headed snake, unicorns, flying dragons, hippogryphs and phoenixes, but also tries to give reasonable explanations of the reports, which might be based on real animals with some features matching these fabulous creatures. Some of these mythical and fantastic figures are beautifully illustrated in the folding plates, here coloured by a contemporary hand.
With the bookplate of Michael Lührs on the front paste-down. Binding very slightly worn and rubbed, with some small spots, paper at some places very slightly discoloured, but otherwise a beautiful copy of a rare work on fabulous animals, seldom offered for sale. Engelmann, p. 290; Nissen ZBI 4577; Rothschild, Schultze & Pellegrini, Herpetological osteopathology: annotated bibliography of amphibians and reptiles (2012), p. 375.