Catalogue raisonné des lépidoptères du Berry & de l'Auvergne (Cher, Indre, Creuse, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal) (France centrale).

1879 [8], 206, [1] p., contemporary half leather (basane, sheepskin) with marbled boards, spine with four raised bands and author/title in gilt, marbled endpapers. Ex library of the French Lepidopterologist Philippe Darge (1933-2023). Bound together (but after) with: L. Pierrugues, 1883. La fin des Lérins ou le martyre de cinq cents moines et de leur abbé (212 p.), thus a completely unrelated book at the end (but not mentioned on the spine).This catalogue is written by entomologist, writer, artist and son of the famous writer George Sand, Jean-François-Maurice-Arnauld Dudevant (1823-1889), known as Baron Dudevant, but better known by the pseudonym Maurice Sand . Sand started collecting butterflies in 1852 in his garden in Nohan and finished this catalogue after 25 years of catching and raising local butterflies. In his book he already regrets the loss of natural habitat and thus the loss of butterfly species in many localities (one wonders what he would have thought of the present day situation?!). Sand observed that 80% of all European butterflies occurred in France, and, in turn, the area covered by his work contained 80% of all French butterflies.