364 



NATURE 



iFcb. 11, 1 881 



omitted from the table ; if it had been inserted the 20 years and 

 2 mouths period would have counted as two 10 year periods.) 



December 1S60 to January 1S41, interval 10 years 2 months. 

 .. 1S70 „ iSSi, ,, 10 „ 2 „ 



Thus at least four periods (out of a possible seven) do not require 

 much "screwing" to make them approximate to 11 -year epochs ; 

 while if we were to add in the long frost of 1S50 we should have 

 no less thaa six periods, showing a distinct recurrence. 



It may not be quite clear why the remaining dates are 

 inserted ; but if they are analysed in the following manner they 

 are not uiiiustiuctive. 



December 1813 to Januai-y 183S, interval 22 years 2 months. 

 1S37 „ 1857, ,, 19 „ 2 „ 



These periods, like the one 1840 to 1861, tend to show that 

 the intervals approximate nearer to 22 years. How does 

 F. M. S. obtain the intervals he quotes? As regai-ds the last 

 paragraph of the letter of F. M. S. respecting the "abnormal 

 heat, cold, raia, &c.," it is only necessary to say that he would 

 have considerable difficulty to prove to Norman Lockyer, 

 Meldrum, and others, tliat 11 -year cycles do not exist, even if 

 F. M. S. "screwed" his figures, as he seems to have done in 

 his letter above. H. W. C. 



Butterflies in Winter 



A COUNTRYMAN h.is shown me to-day two fine specimens of 

 Vanessa uttka in a lively condition caught on the 4th inst. in an 

 empty room on the border of the New Forest, exposed to the 

 severity of the late frost. Thom.\s \V. Shore 



Southampton, February 8 



JOHN GOULD, F.R.S. 

 'X'HE grave has recently closed over the remains of a 

 -*■ very remarkable man, and although the annals of 

 science, we are proud to think, afford many instances of 

 indomitable energy and unceasing perseverance rewarded, 

 they have no greater record of success than is to be found 

 in the life of John Gould. No one can regard the series 

 of works written and illustrated by him without acknow- 

 ledging that they are a luonument of human energy, and 

 the story of his life makes the fulfilment of these large 

 enterprises the more interesting. In the character of the 

 man we must look for the secret of his success, because it 

 is well knowii that he possessed neither the advantages of 

 wealth nor education at the commencement of his career, 

 and yet he has left behind him a series of works the like of 

 which will probably never be seen ag.iin ; and this because 

 it is rare to find the qualities of a naturalist, an artist, and 

 a man of business combined in one and the same person. 

 John Gould was all these in an eminent degree : he knew 

 the characters of birds as well as any man living, and 

 although it has often been said that he made too many 

 species — and latterly it has been the fashion with certain 

 writers to sink a good many of them — yet the monographer, 

 travelling over the ground again, generally finds that the 

 critic, and not Gould himself, was at fault. As an artist 

 he possessed talent combined with the greatest taste, and 

 this, added to the knowledge of botany, acquired in his 

 early days, enabled him to give to the world the most 

 beautiful series of pictures of animal life which have yet 

 been produced. Certain special works, where the pencils 

 of Wolf or Keulemans have been employed, many vie 

 with those of Gould, but taken in a collective sense, his 

 splendid folios, full of coloured plates, are as yet without a 

 rival. That he was a good man of business the fact that 

 his writings were not only self-supporting, but further 

 realised him a considerable fortune, is the best proof. 

 Though in outward seejning he was stern and even some- 

 what brusque in manner, those who knew him well can 

 vouch for the goodness of his heart, and can tell of many 

 an act of kindness and charity, concealed from the world 

 under a bluff exterior, and no one ever heard him speak 

 unkindly of any of his contemporaries. Straightforward- 

 ness was one of his especial characteristics, as well as an 

 exact manner of doing business, paying for everything 



the moment the work was done; and this probably 

 accounts for the way in which his artists, lithographers 

 and colourers, worked for him for long periods of years. 



Mr. Gould at his death was in his seventy-seventh 

 year, having been born in September, 1804. He was a 

 native of Lyme in Dorsetshire, but when quite an infant 

 his parents moved to the neighbourhood of Guildford 

 When he was fourteen years of age his father was 

 appointed a foreman in the Royal Gardens at Windsor, 

 under Mr. J. T. Alton, and here the lad had a grand 

 opportunity of studying British birds in a state of 

 nature ; in his collection are still to be seen two magpies 

 shot by himself and stuffed at the age of fourteen, which 

 are even now most creditable specimens of taxidermy, 

 and foreshadowed the excellence which he afterwards 

 attained to in that art. Till the year 1827, when became 

 to London, he was still employed in active gardening, 

 having left Windsor for a post at Sir William Ingleby's 

 at Ripley Castle in Yorkshire. Immediately after coming 

 to town he was appointed curator to the Zoological 

 Society's Museum, at that time in its infancy, and he 

 enjoyed the intimate friendship of Mr. N. A. Vigors, then 

 one of the leading English naturalists, and through him 

 John Gould received his first opportunity of appearing as 

 an author. So rare w-ere Himalayan birds in those days 

 that a small collection was thought worthy of description 

 by Mr. Vigors in the /'r(;(-tvn'/«^j- of the Zoological Society, 

 and the figuring of these specimens w-as commenced by 

 Mr. Gould under the title of " A Century of Birds from 

 the Himalayan Mountains." By this time however an 

 event had taken place which had an influence on the 

 whole of his later life, viz., his marriage with Miss Coxen, 

 the daughter of Mr. Nicholas Co.xen of Kent. Besides 

 her other accomplishments Mrs. Gould was an admirable 

 draughtswoman, and, from her husband's sketches, she 

 transferred to stone the figures of the above-named work. 

 Its success was so great that in 1832 the "Birds of 

 Europe" was commenced, and finished in five large folio 

 volumes in 1837, while simultaneously, in 1S34, he issued 

 a Monograph of the Rhamphastida; or family of Toucans, 

 and in 183S a Monograph of the Trogonidae or family of 

 Trogons. To the last he 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 Beag/e by his friend 

 Mr. Darw'in, 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 effects 

 in the annals of ornithology'. Beyond a few scattered 

 descriptions by some of the older authors and an account 

 of the Australian birds in the museum of the Linnean 

 Society, by Messrs. \'igors and Horsfield, the birds of 

 .Australasia were very little knowm 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 be personally 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 pur- 

 pose of obtaining an exact knowledge of Australian birds, 

 must ever be reckoned as a distinct scientific achieve- 

 ment, and the accounts of the habits of some of the more 

 remarkable species, such as the mound-building Mega- 

 podes 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 



