TREMBLEY (Abraham) Mémoires, pour servir à l'histoire d'un genre de polypes d'eau douce, à bras en forme de cornes, Leiden: Jean et Herman Verbeek, 1744. - In-4, dark brown half-chagrin, spine decorated with false nerves (19th-century binding). First edition of this collection of 4 memoirs devoted to freshwater polyps, written by the naturalist Abraham Trembley (1710-1784), a disciple of Réaumur. In the first memoir, the author describes polyps, their shape, movements and some of what he was able to discover about their structure. In the second, he discusses the food of polyps, how they seize and swallow their prey, the cause of their color and what else he has discovered about their structure. Added to this are considerations on the weather and the cleanest ways to find them. The last two memoirs deal respectively with the generation of polyps and the operations performed on them. The illustration includes 4 superb bands engraved by Jacob Van der Schley (1715-1779) after drawings by the Dutch painter and draughtsman Cornelis Pronk (1691-1759), 4 culs-de-lampe and 13 folding plates engraved by Schley after Pierre Lyonet (1707-1789). This copy bears the signature "Vonwiller" on the title. This may have been Paul Vonwiller (1885-1962), a Swiss anatomist specializing in microscopy and morphology, who headed the morphology section in Moscow (1931-1939) and published numerous works in this field, with a career mainly at the University of Zurich. Used rubbing to the binding, corners dulled. Provenance: Paul Vonwiller ?