La Pisciculture et la pêche en Chine. Ouvrage accompagné de 51 planches représentant les principaux instruments de pisciculture et engins de pêche employés par les Chinois et quelques nouvelles espèces de poissons recueillies en Chine par P. D. de Thiersant. Précédé d'une introduction sur la pisciculture chez les divers peuples par le Dr. J.-L. Soubeiran

Paris, G. Masson, 1872. Quarto, 3 unnumbered leaves, ix and 196 pages, with 51 lithographed plates.

First edition of this important and very rare work, issued in a small number of copies. Catalogue Petit, 656; Bibliotheca piscatoria, p. 75; Nissen, ZBI, 1018.

Complete with all 51 plates, numbered I-L with an additional plate XXXV bis. They form two distinct series: 36 plates devoted to nets, fish-farming apparatus and fishing implements used in China, followed by 15 plates depicting fishes collected by the author, including several species then new to European science. Curiously, the list of plates records only the first series.

Modern black half shagreen over corners, smooth spine decorated with double gilt fillets and gilt rolls at head and foot, marbled paper boards, green endpapers and pastedowns. Original wrappers retained, backed and restored.

Some foxing and marginal dampstaining to several leaves, more pronounced at the beginning of the volume. Two library stamps in the right-hand margins, one on the title page and the other on page ix of the foreword.

An infantry officer before entering the diplomatic service, Philibert Dabry de Thiersant made his official appointments in China the starting point for an extensive investigation of the country. After serving with the French expeditionary force, he acted as government commissioner at Zhoushan and Tianjin and subsequently held consular posts at Hankou, Shanghai and Canton. His years in China produced a substantial body of writing on subjects ranging from military organisation, medicine and pharmacology to religion, institutions and technology.

His consular position gave him access to territories, informants and collecting networks that remained difficult for European naturalists to reach. Dabry questioned fishermen, studied their implements, observed fish ponds and breeding methods, assembled Chinese drawings and simultaneously formed extensive zoological collections. A contemporary review published by Gaston Tissandier in 1873 credited him with bringing 850 species of fish back to France, many of them said to have been previously unknown to European naturalists.

This material did not remain confined to a diplomat's private collection. Dabry circulated it among specialists connected with the Muséum and learned societies, including Auguste Duméril, Alphonse Guichenot and Pieter Bleeker. His specimens consequently contributed to the study of a Chinese fish fauna that was still only imperfectly recorded. Several fishes were named in his honour, including Chanodichthys dabryi and Saurogobio dabryi, both described by Bleeker in 1871, preserving in zoological nomenclature the importance of Dabry's collecting work.

Published shortly after his return from East Asia, the present work gave an ordered form to this field research. Jean-Léon Soubeiran, professor at the Paris School of Pharmacy and secretary of the Société d'acclimatation, contributed the introductory survey of fish culture among different peoples. His role was limited to this general introduction: the Chinese material and the final section entitled Nouvelles espèces de poissons de Chine are bibliographically attributed to Dabry de Thiersant. The two men later extended their collaboration with La Matière médicale chez les Chinois, published in 1874.

The first 36 plates provide a visual inventory of Chinese fishing practices. Nets, traps, lines, hooks, boats, capture devices, fish ponds and breeding installations are represented with sufficient precision to explain both their construction and their use. Several figures, accompanied by captions in Chinese characters, retain the character of the documents gathered by the author in the field.

Dabry did not regard these methods as mere exotic curiosities. He understood them as elements of an organised economy of water. He describes the breeding of domestic fishes, the transportation of eggs and fry, the restocking of rivers, fishing regulations and the use of species suited to ponds and rice fields. His book therefore does more than record Chinese practices: it presents them as a body of experience from which Europe might profit. Tissandier's contemporary review already emphasised this practical purpose and the advance that Dabry attributed to China in the art of aquaculture.

From plate XXXVI onwards, this technical survey gives way to ichthyology. The final 15 lithographs depict fishes collected in China, while pages 178-192 supply their descriptions. Recorded separately in modern zoological databases under the title Nouvelles espèces de poissons de Chine, this section is both a contribution to scientific nomenclature and a zoological extension of the study of fishing practices.

The curious omission of this second series from the list of plates almost inadvertently reveals the dual character of the book. The first part belongs to technical ethnography and describes the means by which communities exploit and cultivate aquatic resources; the second moves from the implements to the animals themselves and introduces Dabry's collections into the field of descriptive zoology.

After leaving China, Dabry continued his diplomatic career as Consul General in Guatemala and was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary in 1884. This final stage confirms the unusual character of a diplomat who transformed his successive appointments into centres of observation and collection, circulating objects, texts, specimens and knowledge between continents.

A rare first edition, complete with all 51 lithographed plates. The product of the investigations and collections of a diplomat-naturalist, La Pisciculture et la pêche en Chine progresses from nets and fish ponds to newly described species, revealing within a single volume both the techniques of a people and the fauna they brought to the attention of European science.