Vlll BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



of tlie Trogonidpe, or Family of Trogons/ To the last lie 

 maintained his love for these birds, and one of his most 

 recently finished works was a second edition of the last- 

 mentioned Monograph. It is a curious fact that when John 

 Gould proposed to publish his first work he applied to several 

 of the leading firms in London, and not one of them would 

 undertake to bring it out, so that it was only with reluctance 

 that he began to issue the work on his own account. Besides 

 these larger publications he had described the birds collected 

 during the voyage of the ' Beagle ■" by his friend Mr. Darwin, 

 and had contributed papers on other subjects to the 

 Zoological Society's publications. 



We now come to what we consider the most striking 

 incident in Mr. Gould's life, one unsurpassed in its efiects in 

 the annals of ornithology. Beyond a few scattered descrip- 

 tions by some of the older authors, and an account of the 

 Australian birds in the museum of the Linnean Society by 

 Messrs. Vigors and Horsfield, the birds of Australasia were 

 very little known at the date we speak of. Accompanied 

 therefore by his devoted wife, Mr. Gould proceeded in 1838 

 to study Australian birds in their own home, and he per- 

 sonally explored Tasmania, the islands in Bass's Straits, 

 South Australia, and New South Wales, travelling 400 miles 

 into the interior of the latter country. This voyage, specially 

 undertaken for the purpose of obtaining an exact knowledge 

 of Australian birds, must ever be reckoned as a distinct 

 scientific achievement ; and the accounts of the habits of 

 some of the more remarkable species, such as the mound- 

 building Megapodes and the Bower -birds, were quite 

 triumphs in the way of field ornithology. Nests and eggs 

 were collected as well as an excellent series of skins, both of 

 mammals and birds; and here Mr. Gould's beautiful method 

 of preparation was especially noticeable ; some of his speci- 

 mens, skinned more than thirty years ago, are as neat in 

 appearance and as fresh as the day they were prepared. 

 Returning in 1810, after two years' absence, he commenced 



