118 "The Times" on John Could. V^^toT 



tions, might bear a passing censure, we repeat our assertion. 

 This assertion, however, we ought to prove, or at least attempt 

 to justify. 



Let us give a rapid sketch (jf Mr. Gould's labours. In a 

 position which brought under the notice of Mr. Gould a collec- 

 tion of birds from the Himalaya Mountains most of the species 

 new to science, and described either by himself or his friend 

 Mr. Vigors in the proceedings of the Zoological Society, he 

 selected a hundred of peculiarly interesting s[)ecies, many of diem 

 pheasants (proi)erly speaking) of gf)rgeous i)lumage, and con- 

 ceived the idea of publishing a work entitled A Century of Birds 

 from the Himalaya Mountains. In his artistic figures he was 

 ably seconded by one now no more — one whose hand tilled up 

 his sketches even after his return from Australia, and was not 

 idle in delineating native flowers or fruits, insects, and birds, for 

 future use during a sojourn in that distant country. The Century 

 (in imperial folio) may be regarded as the type, in its style, its 

 size, and mode of illustration, of all his sub.^^equent publications, 

 albeit at every stage of future progress decided improvement 

 has been marked in clear characters. 



This work v»as well received; it deserxed to be so. It was 

 a new idea ; it demonstrated how birds might be drawn and 

 coloured; and, besides, was intrinsically valuable to the professed 

 ornithologist, whether P.ritish or continental. 



To attempt iiKjre when something has been achieved is surely 

 a laudable ambition. That Mr. Gould should have detennined 

 u])on the execution of a far more elaborate and extensive work, 

 encouraged by success, and gratified by the expressed approba- 

 tion of the scientific world, is less to be wondered at than the 

 boldness of his first attemi)t, the felicitous issue of which he 

 could not have promised himself, whatever might have been his 

 hopes. In the very month of the same year (June, 1832) in 

 which the Century was comi)leted, he commenced his Birds of 

 Europe. Such a work was a desideratum. Nothing like it had 

 been attempted, for his plan was not only to give a clear descrip- 

 tion of the habits, manners, and locality of every species, with 

 the details of colouring, and the changes of plumage to which 

 so many are sul)ject — in fact a succinct history of each — but to 

 figure ever}- species, male and female, of the size of life, and, 

 where necessary, al.so the young, and individuals clothed in the 

 plumage of summer and winter, whenever such figures would 

 clear up i)oints of doubt, and conduce to the recognition of the 

 .same species luider its varied aspects. P)Ut though such a work 

 was a desideratum, it could not be overlooked that far less ex- 

 pensive works on British birds had been jtublished in our own 

 island, and that some of these — as I'cwick's -were grajihically 

 illustrated (Mr. Yarrell's admirable work had not then ap- 

 peared) ; and it was to be feared that the cost of such a publi- 

 cation, although embracing the Birds of Euro])e. would, taking 

 the foregoing points into consideration, render a remunerative 



