1. Peter Simon von Pallas, Bemerkungen über den Onager der Alten, oder den eigentlichen wilden Esel, “Neue nordische Beyträge zur physikalischen und geographischen Erd- und Völkerbeschreibung” 20 (1781), 22–40.
Journals, where researchers could publish their findings and discuss new discoveries, played an important role in the scientific life of the Enlightenment. The Neue nordische Beyträge was a journal edited by Pallas and published in Leipzig and Petersburg. Pallas himself made some of his research known in the journal, for example his work on onagers. The article is supplemented by a plate with hand-colored illustration showing two specimens of the species.
2. Philippe Fermin, Abhandlungen von der Surinamischen Kröte oder Pipa, Brunschweig: Waisenhaus, 1776. 8°.
Philippe Fermin (1720–1790) was a physician from Maastricht. In 1754 he went to Surinam, which was then a Dutch colony. He spent many years there studying the local nature and describing new species. He published many descriptions of the nature of Dutch Guiana and a dissertation on an interesting South American amphibian, whose systematic name is Pipa pipa (common Surinam toad). The work is completed by a plate with a realistic hand-coloured illustration of the toad.
3. Carl von Linné, Beschreibung eines americanisches Thieres, “Der Königl. Schwedischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Abhandlungen aus der Naturlehre, Haushaltungskunst und Mechanik”, 9 (1753).
In the late 1740s, Carl von Linné (Carl Linnaeus, 1707–1778), a great Swedish naturalist, taxonomist, and advocate of binomial nomenclature of species, received a collection of specimens of American animals from Adolph
Friedrich, the successor to the Swedish crown. Some time later, the king also offered him a specimen of “a curious quadruped, that he should study it, describe it, and make it known to a wider public.” Linnaeus set to work and announced his findings in a journal published in the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. The “strange quadruped” turned out to be a raccoon, beautifully depicted on a folding plate.
4. Peter Simon von Pallas, Naturgeschichte merkwürdiger Thiere, Berlin: Georg August Lange, 1769–71.
Peter Simon von Pallas (1741–1811) was a German zoologist who achieved international fame through his work in the Netherlands and England. In 1767 he was invited by Cathrine II to Russia, where he became a member of the Russian Academy of Science and professor of Saint Petersburg University. In 1767–1780 he published in Latin Specilegia zoologica, which includes, among other things, the illustrations of various species of bats.