Gould, JOHN

Gould, JOHN, ornithologist, born at Lyme, Dorsetshire, in 1804. Removing in early life to the neighbourhood of Windsor, where his father was foreman in the Royal Gardens, his ruling passion soon showed itself. He became curator to the Zoological Society's Museum in 1827, when the friendship of Mr N. A. Vigors encouraged him in the production of the first of the large illustrated folios the publication of which from time to time established his reputation. This was a Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains (1832), the plates being drawn and coloured by his wife. Next after this followed Monograph of the Ramphastidae (Toucans) (1834), Icones Avium (1837), Birds of Europe (1832-37), and Monograph of the Trogonidae (1838). Assistance was now granted him to proceed to Australia in order to study its natural history; the results of his investigations appeared in Birds of Australia (7 vols. 1840-48), Mammals of Australia (1845), and Family of Kangaroos (1841-42). His Monograph of the Odontophorinae (American Partridges) appeared in 1844-46, and his Humming Birds in 1849. He took immense pains with the illustrations to the latter, the humming-birds, of which he had a splendid collection on view at the Exhibition of 1851, being great favourites with him. Gould's other great works, several of which were left unfinished, were Birds of Great Britain (1862), Birds of Asia, and Birds of New Guinea. Gould, who was a Fellow of the Zoological Society, and contributed largely to its Proceedings, helped to prepare the department 'Birds' in the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle, was a keen sportsman, an accurate observer, and a patient and successful labourer in his chosen field of study. He died 3d February 1881. See Westminster Review, 1841, and Nature, 1881; and the elaborate Analytical Index to his works by R. Bowdler Sharpe (1893).