Les Ruses Innocentes, dans lesquelles se voit comment on prend les Oyseaux passagers, & les non passagers : & de plusieurs sortes de Bestes à quatre pieds. Avec les plus beaux secrets de la pesche dans les Rivieres & dans les Estangs. Et la manière de faire tous les Rets & Filets qu'on peut s'imaginer. Le tout divisé en cinq livres, avec les figures demonstratives. Ouvrage tres curieux, utile & recreatif pour toutes les personnes qui font leur sejour à la campagne.

Chez Pierre Lamy, Paris 1660, in-4 (15.5 x 25.5 cm), (16) 55pp(1ffx tit.) (6) 57-119pp(1 fbl.) (8) 121-184pp(4) 185-230pp(8) 231-288pp., bound

First edition, published under initials and illustrated with 66 wood engraved plates (first book: 7, second book: 17, third book: 16, forth book: 10 and the last book: 16), including several folding or double page. Title page in red and black. A contemporary tail piece glued to the verso of the title page.

Contemporary binding in full blond calf. Spine in five compartments adorned with richly decorated panels, as well as a red morocco title piece and a small library label at the bottom. Double gilt fillet on the leading edges. All edges red. Binding skillfully restored. Title page very lightly stained, a light waterstain on the lower margin of three leaves at the beginning of the volume. Some plates have been reinforced on the verso with strips of paper, some have minor, tiny tears.

Intended, as the title specifies, “à toutes personnes qui font leur séjour à la campagne” “for all people who holiday in the countryside”, this “curieux et récréatif” “curious and recreational” book written by a Grandmont Abbey monk is, in some ways, an abundantly illustrated manual of the perfect capturer. The book is divided into five parts: the first concerns the making of nets intended to capture “oiseaux, les bestes et les poissons” “birds, animals and fish”; the second focuses on the catch of the “oiseaux non passagers” “non-passenger birds” (partridges, pheasants, chickens, thrushes, etc.); the third book deals with the hunting of woodcocks, ducks and other “oiseaux passagers” “passenger birds”; the fourth deals with the capture of animals (hares, rabbits, ferrets, badgers, foxes, wolves, etc.) by “filets, collets, lacets, pièges et autres machines” “nets, snares, laces, traps and other machines”; the last part of the work concerns fishing for fish, both in ponds and in rivers thanks to nets, hooks, baits and other machines.
Beautiful copy of this rare first edition.