John Gould (1804–1881)


An ornithologist, John Gould, F.R.S, was born at Lyme in Dorsetshire. He was employed at the Royal Gardens, Windsor, from 1818 to 1824 as a gardener where he gained much knowledge of birds in their wild state, and commenced stuffing them, soon attaining great skill. In 1827, he became a taxidermist for the zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors for work on the collection of the newly formed Zoological Society of London. In 1830, he became possessed of a fine collection of birds from the Himalayas, then almost a terra incognita, and the next year published a work descriptive of them, entitled A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains. Other important ornithological works followed, and in 1837, he issued the great work on the Birds of Europe. The following year he visited Australia, for the purpose of studying the natural productions of that country. The result of this visit was the Birds of Australia, a work in seven folio volumes, containing figures and descriptions of upwards of six hundred species. He also published a Handbook to the Birds of Australia in 1865. Other great works were The Birds of Great Britain, and the Mammals of Australia, those on the Birds of Asia and the Birds of New Guinea being still unfinished at the time of his death. Gould devoted much attention to hummingbirds, and formed an unrivalled collection, which he exhibited in 1851 at the Zoological Society's Gardens. These, with various other specimens, stuffed with extraordinary skill by Gould, were, in 1882, purchased by the British Museum. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1843, and contributed largely to its proceedings and to other scientific journals. He died at London.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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