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Further to the Hemprich and Ehrenberg confusion (1 Viewer)

joekroex

joekroex

Joek Roex
I have come across two versions of the Hemprich and Ehrenberg Symbolae physicae (Aves) document:

1. Symbolae physicae seu Icones et descriptiones corporum naturalium novorum aut minus cognitorum quae ex itineribus per Libyam Aegyptum Nubiam Dongalam Syriam Arabiam et Habessiniam. Pars zoologica. Aves

and

2. Symbolae physicae seu icones et descriptiones avium quae ex itineribus per Africam borealem et Asiam occidentalem

Is there any concensus on the relationship between the two documents? Both have the same publisher and publication date (Berolini: Ex officina academica, 1828, but likely 1833); although 1. has a note by Ehrenberg dated 1829 (see pp. 91–92), it is not clear whether this belongs to the document or has been added later.

I've seen Zimmer's entry in his Catalogue, where he lists both, seemingly of equal value.

Alan Peterson has dealt with a similar issue here, which has been quoted on this forum before, but I do not see where it connects with my issue here. Maybe I am overlooking something obvious?

Or perhaps, as they do seem to be exactly the same apart from the title page, one could be a reprint, but which one?

---------------

Joek Roex
http://birdsandwords.eu
 
In Priority Dating of Scientifc Names in Ornithology from Edward C. Dickinson et al. p. 91-92 you may find the answer. There seems to be a Decas Secunda but I do not see this on the title pages you posted. Must be something like Symbolae Phisicae seu icons adhunc ineditae to find on the later one.

Nevertheless I personally think it is not the right place to put this question in Etymology. More of a Nomenclature question.
 
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I see no real suggestion that two different versions of the original work exist.


Things I'd bear in mind here would include:
- This work (like many others) was produced in parts. Although in such cases the publisher usually provided instructions as to how to bind the parts together, it is frequent that individual copies were not all bound in exactly the same way.
- The brown pages that you see in some copies, bearing an apparent title, are not, technically, "title pages". They are wrappers -- folded sheets of rough paper that were used to wrap a number of printed pages when these were distributed to the subscribers. Wrappers were not really intended to remain parts of the book after binding -- sometimes they were retained, and bound within it; more often they were simply discarded by the bookbinder.
- Sometimes (and this seems to be the case here), things can be further muddied up when scanned pages end up assembled into a numerical document in a way that differs from the books.

- On the Numistral website (your first "version"), it was apparently decided to make two numerical documents out of a single volume, without making that clear. The two documents are:
Together, these make up "Pars zoologica I" of the work, which includes a preface, mammals (text + 20 plates), and birds (text + 10 plates).
"(1)" includes the contents from the front cover up to the end of mammals, plus the back cover.
"(2)" includes the front cover, the title page, and all what had been left out of "(1)", up to the back cover.
The results is two electronic documents that "look like" complete scanned books (front cover - title page - contents - back cover). But you can quite easily verify that the title page, in both documents, represents the same physical page by comparing the manuscript annotations on it ("H", "16,1", "& II.", "Mammalia Aves.", "Havi", "Afrika"). And if you compare the covers, you'll also find that they are scans of the same physical object (exact pattern, scratches, etc.).
No wrappers appear to be present in this copy.

- In BHL/archive.org (your second "version"), the Numistral single volume is three distinct items, which were presumably never bound together. Then comes a fourth item, which has no equivalent in the Numistral copy:
The title page in the first item appears to be identical (minus the handwritten additions) to that in the Numistral documents.


So to me the "two versions" seem to be
- a wrapper-less copy with a title page shown out of place (which makes it appear associated to the bird contents); vs.
- a copy with the wrappers retained, and with the same title page appearing only in the right place (i.e., outside of the bird contents).
 
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