INTRODUCTION 25 
finished in 1848 in seven volumes, to which five supplementary parts, 
forming another volume, were subsequently (1851-69) added. In 1849 
he began A Monograph of the Trochilide or Humming-birds, extending to 
five volumes, the last of which appeared in 1861, and has since been 
followed by a supplement by Dr. Sharpe, who since the author’s death in 
1881 has completed The Birds of Asia, in seven volumes (1850-83), and 
The Birds of New Guinea, begun in 1875. A Monograph of the Odonto- 
phorine or Partridges of America (1844-50), and The Birds of Great Britain, 
in five volumes (1862-73) make up the wonderful tale consisting of 
more than forty folio volumes, and containing more than 3000 coloured 
plates! The earlier of these works were illustrated by Mrs. Gould, and 
the figures in them are fairly good ; but those in the later, except when 
(as he occasionally did) he secured the services of Mr. Wolf, are not so 
much to be commended. There is, it is true, a smoothness and finish 
about them not often seen elsewhere; but, as though to avoid the 
exaggerations of Audubon, Gould usually adopted the tamest of attitudes 
in which to represent his subjects, whereby expression as well as vivacity 
is wanting. Moreover, both in drawing and in colouring there is fre- 
quently much that is untrue to nature, so that it has not uncommonly 
happened for them to fail in the chief object of all zoological plates, that 
of affording sure means of recognizing specimens on comparison. In 
estimating the letterpress, which was avowedly held to be of secondary 
importance to the plates, we must bear in mind that, to ensure the 
success of his works, it had to be written to suit a very peculiarly com- 
posed body of subscribers. Nevertheless a scientific character was so 
adroitly assumed that scientific men—some of them even ornithologists— 
have thence been led to believe the text had a scientific value, and that of 
a high class. However it must also be remembered that, throughout the 
whole of his career, Gould consulted the convenience of working orni- 
thologists by almost invariably refraining from including in his folio 
works the technical description of any new species without first pub- 
lishing it in some journal of comparatively easy access. 
An ambitious attempt to produce in England a general series of 
coloured plates on a large scale was Fraser’s Zoologia Typica, the first 
part of which bears date 1841-42. Others appeared at irregular inter- 
vals until 1849, when the work, which never received the support it 
deserved, was discontinued. The 70 plates (46 of which represent 
Birds) composing, with some explanatory letterpress, the volume are by C, 
Cousens and H. N. Turner,—the latter (as his publications prove) a zoologist 
of much promise, who in 1851 died of a wound received in dissecting. 
The chief object of the author, who had been naturalist to the Niger 
Expedition, and curator to the Museum of the Zoological Society of 
London, was to figure the animals contained in its gardens or described 
in its Proceedings, which until the year 1848 were not illustrated. 
The publication of the Zoological Sketches of Mr. Wolf, from animals 
1 In 1850 Mr. F. H. Waterhouse brought out a careful pamphlet shewing The 
Dates of Publication of some of Gould’s works, and in 1893 Dr. Sharpe an Analytical 
Index to them. It is books of this kind that place the literature of ornithology so 
far in advance of that relating to any other branch of zoology. 
