Döbel, Heinrich Wilhelm. Neueröffnete Jäger=Practica Oder der wohlgeübte und Erfahrne Jäger, Darinnen Eine vollständige Anweisung zur gantzen Hohen und Niedern Jagd=Wissenschaft in Vier Theilen … (New Opened Practice of the Hunter Or the well practised and Versed Hunter, In that a complete Instruction to the whole Knowledge of the Noble and Small-Game Hunt in Four Parts … All described thoroughly and clearly of many years practise … Along with a preface of the Mr. Chancellor (Imperial) Freiherr von Wolf. 3^rd revised edition very enlarged especially in forest matters. 4 pts. in 1 vol. Leipsic, Joh. Sam. Heinsius, 1783. Sm. fol. With several partly figurative woodcut-vignettes and illustrations and

21  folded  engravings

(20 ca. 35 x 40, one 35 x 19 cm, all comfortably folded on full-size blue laid paper). 13 nn. ll. title, prefaces + contents, 148, 264, 192, 108 pp., 32 nn. ll. ind. Later light brown h. pigskin with stamped back-title + lines, pigskin corners with lines, dark brown marbled covers, and bluish-grey insides + fly leaves.

Schwerdt I, 146 c; Jeanson 1709 + Cat. 1987, 183 and Souhart 143 for each other editions. – The classic published in 1746 in three parts and with only 20 coppers for the first time, likewise at Heinsius, followed in 1754 by the 2^nd edition enlarged on four parts and then the third anew enlarged one here, again in folio with now 21 coppers. In smaller size (8vo and large 8vo. resp.) then a Vienna edition of 1785/86 and as 4^th edition the one Leipsic 1828 worked over “completely and little valuably” (Meyer’s Convers.-Lex., 4^th ed., vol. V [1889], p. 16) and accompanied by 9 representing plates only.

I

Of the characteristics of the proper and the winged game, the hounds und their training, care, and voluntary exercise as of the setting up of several hunting-grounds and preserves.

Of the various kinds of hunting, the utensils belonging to each one and to make the correct use of them.

Herein  among  many  relevant  others

Of the par force hunt / What belongs to the arrangement of a perfect hunting equipage or par force hunt / Of the training of the young hounds / Of the feeding of the young hounds / Of the par force horses / The presearch for the par force hunt / Of the functioning of the young hounds / How the par force hunt hounds are set in work and breath before they can be used to the perfect hunting / The starting to catch the stag / How it further goes on with the hunt / How to give care to the hounds and to keep them by health / Recipes for various illnesses of the hounds / Of the celebration of the feast of St. Hubert / Of the still-hunt or shooting / How a deer-cry is made and used / Of the still-hunt for wild boars / To call the roe / To whistle for the curlew / Of the whistle for the snipe and others more / Of the whistle for the cuckoo / Of the hunt on winged game (chap. 136-217, pp. 171-264).

Of the nature of the woods and other knowledge belonging to the nobel hunt.

IV

Of diverse needed hunting requisites and nature of the woods. – Herein among others

Some annotations on the characteristics of the noble stag as overlooked in the first part / Of the false use of the leader / Of the most well-known names of the par force hounds / Of the fishery (pp. 64-108).

The  accurately  worked  coppers ,

one of them with the signature of Joh. Gottfried Krügner II (1714 Leipsic 1782), illustrating the technical details of the whole as then i. a.

How the instruments for the lay out of the alleys, wing setting, and hunting courses are to be made / Presentation of forming the alleys, especially to an octagonal star-alley and a hexagonal one resp. / Clothes, nets, toils / Of a material carriage / Prospect of an organized main hunt along with the course (very small hole in the foot of a participant below right) / Course to the stag hunt / Hunting screen / Course to a confirmed hunt on stag and boar resp. / A counter-hunt / A real round course / Ground plan to a course / A hunt in a broken course / A course with straight wings and a roundness + A further presentation of a course for the boar hunt / Traps / Turnpikes / Altimetry of the trees / To measure out the timber / Fast traps for several predacious animals + Requisite to catch larks .

“ but totally different from its precursor (Carlowitz, Sylvicultura oeconomica, 1713). While Carlowitz represents the learned author experienced in literature, ‘Father Döbel’, as called by the successors, shows to us as

the  expert  perfect  in  hunting + forestry .

(Döbel) represents the robust natural genius of the then hunter, completely incorporated in hunting life and doings of his century, the ancestor and precursor of the so-called Hirschgerechten to whom bookishness was a horror. Stood the hunting for the author higher though as the forestry so the latter is dealt with, too.

Here Döbel gives detailed descriptions of the forest trees, teaches the measuring, arrangement of felling, valuation of trees (the ‘address’ of the trees in respect of their cubic contents), the deforesting, the selling, the measurement and calculation of the fallen lumber and the recultivation etc.

Döbel typyfies for us – taken all in all – the viewpoint of forestry of the then hunting. Absence of general education, but

enthused  love  for  hunting  and  wood ,

practical  sense  and  rich  experience .

His literary creation has … merely historical worth only, but the name of the author among the greensuits paled only when the scientific understanding of the forestry – under displacement of the hunt – started to enter into its rights ”

(Heß in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. V [1877], pp. 284 f.).

In contrast to the latter still 12 years later Meyer’s Convers.-Lex., see above, attests “the Döbel” in its first three editions substantially more than only historical worth and summes up

“ His ‘Opened Practice of the Hunter’ deals with many subjects of hunting knowledge so excellently, that they are worthy of notice still now.

The  work  of  the  leader  and  bloodhound ,

the  arrangement  of  the  surrounded  hunt  etc.

are  described  exemplarily . ”

DÖBEL (b. 1699), whose father became a mounted forester in Güntersberge, came from a hunter and forester family rich in tradition. Rising from the ranks at last he became a senior piqueur with Friedrich August II at the huntership of Hubertusburg and head forester. The Seven Years’ War has covered his tracks, but it seems that he has closed his life after 1760 at his only son, the colonel and senior equirry Friedrich Rudolf von Döbel, in Warsaw or Pleß in Silesia.

VERY  FINE  COPY , nearly absolutely impeccable, only two acid-freely repaired marginal tiny tears and the little hole in the plate said above. Several clear marginal additions in pencil for Latin names of trees. – Cover insides + fly leaves (the latter three-leaved under use of old paper) renewed, stand-edges of the covers rubbed.
Offer no. 14,803 / EUR  1485. / export price EUR  1411. (c. US$ 1827.) + shipping

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