288 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



D. bruijnii, especially if D. albertisi should turn up also from 

 the south-east of New Guinea. I think that the British 

 Museum has quite recently received a specimen of it from 

 Port Moresby. 



Yours &c., 



T. Salvadori. 



Obituary. — John Gould, who has for many years occupied 

 a leading position amongst our ornithologists, died in Feb- 

 ruary last, at his residence in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, 

 in his seventy-seventh year. Gould was born at Lyme, 

 in Dorsetshire, in ]804, and in early life came to Windsor, 

 where he passed several years under the care of the late Mr. 

 J. T. Alton, of the Royal Gardens. He afterwards went to 

 London, and became Taxidermist to the Zoological Society^s 

 Museum. Whilst occupying this post in 1830 Gould ac- 

 quired a collection of birdskins from the Himalaya Moun- 

 tains, a country then ornithologically almost unknown. In 

 this collection were examples o£ many species then new to 

 science; and in his use of the opportunity thus afforded 

 him Gould laid the foundation of his fame and fortune. 

 He first obtained the aid of the late Mr. N. A. Vigors in 

 framing the scientific descriptions, which were published in 

 the first volume of the ' Proceedings ■" of the Zoological 

 Society ; he then enlisted the artistic talent of his wife to 

 draw the most remarkable of the species on stone, and 

 upon these foundations commenced his ' Century of Birds 

 from the Himalaya Mountains.^ In size this work rivalled 

 the volumes of Levaillant, but far excelled them in the 

 artistic excellence of the plates. 



The number of subscribers obtained for his first essay 

 encouraged Gould to proceed ; and he soon afterwards com- 

 menced his ' Birds of Europe,' which was completed in five 

 volumes. Meeting still with the same success, he continued 

 uninterruptedly up to his death to publish Monographs 

 and Faunas in a continuous stream, all uniform with his first 

 work, and all built on the same plan. The result, as shown 

 below, is a series of forty -one folio volumes, illustrated by 2999 



