First and only edition. Quarto (24,5 x 17 cm) [2 – t.p. in French and Russian], [1 – Table of contents], [1 – errata], 310 pp. With four lithographed maps, nine photogravure plates and woodcuts in text. Period red half cloth with marbled papered boards. Both title pages (in French and Russian) with ink stamps “Leihgabe von Prof. Penck.” Some minor wear and bumping of extremities but overall a very good copy.

Very rare Russian imprint with only four paper copies found in Worldcat (Harvard University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, National Library of Scotland, State Library of Bavaria).

Official publication of results of the expedition to the Kanin Peninsula between the White and Barents Seas in the Russian Arctic, undertaken in the summer of 1902 by a prominent Russian biologist, future professor at Moscow University, Boris Mikhailovich Zhitkov. Together with his companions S.V. Pokrovsky (assistant of the Zoological Museum of Moscow University) and G.L. Grave (member of the council of Smolensk zemstvo, or provincial elected government), Zhitkov, crossed the Kanin Peninsula from the Mezen Bay to the Chosha Bay, following the valleys of the Chizha and Chosha Rivers and walking across the land diving the rivers’ basins. The party also surveyed the lower reaches of the Kuloy River, Mgla River and Lake Nizhneye, collecting zoological, botanical and paleontological material and taking a large number of photographs.

The book contains Zhitkov’s travel account in eight chapters and seven articles about the collected zoological specimens written by biologists from Moscow University and other institutions. The text is supplemented with four detailed maps, outlining the route of the expedition across the Kanin peninsula, and nine plates with reproductions of photograph views of Chizha, Chosha, Kuloy and Mgla Rivers, local villages, the expedition boat, and new fish specimens. The woodcuts in the text reproduce original drawings or photographs taken by the expedition members and include views of an Orthodox Christian cross on the coast of the White Sea, a fishermen’s hut on the shore of the Parusnoye Lake, specimens of lizards, anatomy of fish, insects, and spiders, &c. Overall an interesting lesser-known source on the geography and biology of the Kanin Peninsula.

Boris Zhitkov graduated from Moscow University and worked at the Department of Zoology (in 1919-1932 as the head of the department) and the University Zoological Museum. He actively travelled across Russian Arctic, doing research at Novaya Zemlya, Yamal, Kanin Peninsula &c., authored one of the first Russian books on ecology and nature protection (“O promysle i okhrane ptits d delte Volgi,” SPb., 1914), he founded several biological research stations around Moscow.

A list of articles:

1)      Zhitkov, B.M. Across the Kanin tundra (with three maps, seven plates and seven woodcuts in text);
2)      Gratsianov, V.I. About the ichtyofauna of the Russian North (with two photogravure plates and twelve woodcuts in text);
3)      Somov, M. Mollusca of the Kanin expedition of 1902;
4)      Schelkanovtsev, Y.P. Orthoptera genuina of the Kanin expedition;
5)      Martynov, A. Trichoptera of the Kanin expedition (with six woodcuts);
6)      Sintenis, F.F. Diptera and Hymenoptera, collected by the Kanin expedition;
7)      Ruzsky, M.D. About ants of the Arkhangelsk province;
8)      Pokrovsky, S.V. Spiders, collected by the Kanin expedition (with four woodcuts).

A list of maps and plates:
1)      Schematic profile of the Parusnoye and Fomino Lakes [between Chizha and Chosha Rivers] (lithographed, folding);
2)      Plate I. General map of the travel of B.N. Zhitkov to the Kanin Peninsula (lithographed, folding);
3)      Plate II. A route by water across the Kanin Peninsula from the mouth of the Chiza to the mouth of the Chosha River after the survey of the Kanin Expedition of 1902 (lithographed, folding, marking thickets of river grass, swamps, fishermen’s and hunters’ huts and chapels);
4)      Plate III. River Mgla and Lake Nizhneye, after the survey by S.V. Pokrovsky (lithographed, folding);
5)      Plates IV-X: seven photogravure plates with reproductions of fourteen photographs of Kanin Peninsula, Kuloy and Mgla Rivers, taken by the expedition members;
6)      Plate XI. Cottus latifrons nov. sp. [fish specimen] (photogravure);
7)      Plate XII. 1. Osmerus eperlanus L. 2. and 3. Pholis gunellus L. [three fish specimens] (photogravure).