Nowhere Wolves

Schematic illustration of the nervous system. Macfadden's Encyclopedia of physical culture. Volume 1. 1920.

Last month’s brief and very special visit to an abandoned 14th century church close to the German border. These wonderfully crafted hooded figures frequently haunt my mind ever since.

A Sentimental Feathursday

For our sentimentalist followers, we offer this sweet, little wood engraving, "First Lessons in Flight," of sparrow fledglings in the nest with mama and papa by the French naturalist artist and wood engraver Hector Giacomelli (1822-1904), from Animate Creation by the English natural history popularizer J. G. Wood (1827-1889), published in New York in three volumes by Selmar Hess in 1885. The 3-volume set (volume 2 is dedicated to birds) includes scores of wood engravings and many chromolithographs.

Giacomelli is best remembered for his bird paintings and illustrations, and he is noted for his work with master wood engraver and illustrator Gustave Doré (1832-1883), especially for Doré's highly-successful, 1866 Bible with 241 engravings.

Our copy of Animate Creaton is a revised edition, adapted to American zoology by the American physician and zoologist Joseph B. Holder, of an earlier British publication by Wood first published in London by George Routledge as The Illustrated Natural History in 1853.

Hector Giacomelli (1822-1904)

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Undine Rising from the Waters (1880).