Zoology

The manifold forms of animal life has always been fascinating and been illustrated since the first societies of hunters illustrating their prey in caves.  Also publications from the ancient world have descriptions and illustrations of animals. Time was when the animal species were regarded being created fixed and eternal within the forms of a divine order and Linné was the first systematically organizing all forms of biological life in his Systema Naturae. Since the epoch-making publication of Darwins Origin of species from 1859 it is recognized by most people, that all animals - also ourselves - descend from the same primitive form and that all biological forms of life are in a constant changing process, where the natural selection - the evolution - is the very basis for development or phasing out of all animal species and other forms of life through the ages. The human use and abuse of animals in nature and improvement of selected species to pets or domestic animals for production purposes have resulted in many unnatural manipulations and also many unwanted wild species have deliberately been exterminated by man. 

These older works from the collections of the library display the interpretations of many sorts of animals from different ages - from the most primitive, plant-like forms to the most complex, ´higher´species.