While the internet has yielded countless photos available to be snagged (legally or not), old illustrations from before the 20th century are less easy to come by. This collection offers a fine treasury of over 500 animal illustrations from the 19th century, illustrations that are now in the public domain and available for a variety of uses.

The original illustrations were rendered in pen-and-ink in great detail, and are reprinted here in black and white with high resolution. Having been printed on pages with blank backs, the illustrations can be cut out for use, or scanned digitally. Most are a few inches in size (ranging from 1.5 to 6 inches), with 10 to 20 per page.

Although sources of the illustrations are not given, they probably appeared in various old books and monographs on natural history and zoology, since most are rendered in scientific detail. The drawings are arranged more-or-less phylogenetically. Thus one page shows various monkeys and apes, while other pages are successively devoted to horses, canids, felids, elephants, hoofed mammals, rodents and marsupials, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, insects, and various other invertebrates. While not the most comprehensive such collection, this treasury has its uses. ( )