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More natural history illustration - this title popped up in my Twitter feed or maybe not this particular one but something similar. The title of this one suggests that there's a full version of the book but I haven't located a reference yet. Still, it has these wonderful illustrations and minimal text that's mainly identification.
Donovan authored similar books on British quadrupeds, insects, fishes and shells along with a work on Chinese insects. I'd love to find the two-volume Naturalist's Repository of Exotic Natural History (1823) but it doesn't appear to have been scanned. Some of his work is in the Ruskin Museum but I can't find anything by Ruskin himself about it. Donovan apparently has a brief walk-on in Patrick O'Brian's Reverse of the Medal.
Edward Donovan was born in Ireland but spent most of his life in London and rarely left it - another one of those intriguing people who decided to write about the world from their safe European home. His books were apparently quite successful though on his death he "left a large family in destitute circumstances". (According to the Gentlemen's Magazine for July 1837 - it might have been worse since the following obituary for a minor poet gives cause of death as "Died by the Visitation of God".) There's not much biographical information available. The longest treatment appears to be a couple of pages in Michael A. Salmon's The Aurelian Legacy: British Butterflies and their Collectors (2001) which notes his works were unsystematic and that surprisingly for an illustrator there's no known portrait.
