Also included in the list : three First Fleet quartos depicting Australian birds conveying the wonder that the British colonisers felt as they discovered the natural world of a land so remote from Europe.
The bookshop points out there was little artistic or scientific talent in the frontier town of Brisbane when Silvester Diggles arrived from Sydney in l855 , teaching music and drawing . His wife , with whom he had two sons and a daughter, died soon after ; he remarried , Albina Birkett , sired two daughters and a son .
He produced the first substantial zoological work to commence publication in Australia ,which was never completely published by the time of his death in l880 , at Kangaroo Point, because of financial problems
With his niece , Rowena Birkett , they produced some 325 hand-coloured plates of 600 Australian birds for a work titled The Ornithology of Australia , of which three volumes were published from 1865 to 1870.The booklist includes a copy of this rarity for $50,000.
Apart from becoming renowned for his extensive study of birdlife , he founded the Brisbane Choral Society in l859 and the Brisbane Philharmonic Society ,186l, which resulted in him being dubbed " the father of music. "
During his time he also played a part in establishing the first scientific society and museum in Queensland . A founder of the Queensland Philosophical Society , predecessor of the Royal Society of Queensland , he was the Queensland representative of the 1871/72 solar eclipse expedition to Cape Sidmouth , Lockhart River , where he also reported on the birds , insects and scenery there.
The back cover of the book at the head of this story reads : " Diggles was indeed the preeminent birdman of his day, not only in Brisbane but also Queensland , if not Australia-wide."- Dr Rod Fisher , Brisbane historian.
Dynamic Diggles also had a moth, a trapdoor spider and a sea snail named after him .
