4 TRANSACTIONS LIVEEPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



teenth Earl recommended me and Mr. Dyson (a Con- 

 chologist, &c, who had collected in Central America), to 

 the Town Council, who appointed me in January, 1852, 

 Keeper of the Derby Museum, on its removal to Liverpool. 



Lord Derby was not the only great landed proprietor 

 with zoological proclivities. Earl Eitzwilliam, of Went- 

 worth House, Yorkshire, had the next largest collecton 

 to that at Knowsley ; and Sir Eobert Heron, of Stubton, 

 a Lincolnshire Baronet, ranked next. At Windsor, under 

 George IV., and at Buckingham Palace, under the Queen, 

 similar tastes were indulged. George IV. received from 

 the Pasha of Egypt the first living Giraffe imported into 

 England, and this brought John Gould to light. The son 

 of a gardener, he had acquired sufficient skill to be en- 

 trusted with the stuffing "of this giraffe, which was so 

 meritoriously done that both he and the giraffe were 

 transferred to the Zoological Society's Museum, where 

 the genius of Gould (a great and not even yet fully appre- 

 ciated genius), discovered itself to the Society and to the 

 Ornithological world. 



The Queen had a small aviary at Buckingham Palace, 

 and sent some living Angora goats from Windsor to 

 Knowsley, and other interchanges of living specimens 

 likewise took place. Finally Lord Derby, in his will, 

 gave directions that the Queen first and the Zoological 

 Society next, should each have the choice of all the speci- 

 mens from any one species from Knowsley that might be 

 living at his death. The Queen chose the Impeyan 

 pheasants, being the first pair imported into Europe, and 

 three young birds bred from them at Knowsley, which, 

 by the way, were reared by myself. The Zoological 

 Society chose the Eland antelopes, five in number, and 

 valued at £1000. These also were the first imported to 

 Europe and bred at Knowsley. 



