Vol. XXXV.] 50 



My father must have met Bonaparte early in the fifties, 

 as he Avas probably in Paris at that time working at the 

 Mnseum and comparing notes with Verreaux and other 

 French naturalists. He used, as was the custom then, to 

 breakfast with him at his house in the Rue de Lille. I have 

 several letters in my possession from him to my father ; 

 the earliest of these, dated July 1856, is a letter of in- 

 troduction to various American naturalists, which was 

 doubtless most useful to my father when he first went to 

 America in 1856, and which contains the names of Lyman 

 and Agassiz of Boston, Cooper and Lawrence of New York, 

 and Cassin and Baird of Philadelpaia. 



Bonaparte died in 1857. He was the author of innumer- 

 able books and pamphlets, and of the names of many new 

 genera and species. 



John Gould was the son of a working gardener, and was 

 born at Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire in 1804. In his early 

 life he passed several years at Windsor, where his father 

 was employed at Windsor Castle, and he himself was a 

 gardener for a short time at Ripley Castle in York- 

 shire. 



He took a great interest in birds and became a skilful 

 taxidermist, and in that capacity he entered the service of 

 the Zoological Society in 1827 when Mr. N. A. Vigors was 

 Secretary, and while the Society maintained a Museum as 

 well as the Zoological Gardens. 



His first work which brought him fame was ' A Century 



of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains,^ published in 1832. 



His wife, a very clever and artistic woman, drew the most 



remarkable of the species on stone, and it was to her talent 



that the success of Gould^s early works was chiefly due. 



In all, he published 41 folio volumes, illustrated by 

 2999 plates, during his lifetime, and, moreover, was able to 

 acquire by this means a comfortable fortune. 



In 1838 he and his wife went to Australia to obtain 

 material for the ' Birds of Australia,^ and in 1841 

 Mrs. Gould died, and subsequently he had to employ 



