INTRODUCTION. 



vii 



were sent home from the hill countries of India. These species 

 were mostly new to science, and the work was consequently one 

 of great interest, and of no little difficulty; it was entitled "A 

 Century of Birds from the Himalayan Mountains ;" the first 

 part Was published on the 1st. of January, 1831. Its success was 

 complete. Henceforth John Gould, who had sold stuffed birds 

 at Eton, was to take rank amongst the best naturalists of his age. 

 His labours since then have been unceasing, and his success 

 proportionate. He commenced, in 1832, a magnificent work enti- 

 tled "The Birds of Europe," which was completed in 1837, in 

 five folio volumes, containing four hundred and fifty plates. Of 

 this work, although published at an immense price, not a single 

 copy now remains for sale. 



After the issue of two or three less important works, he, in 

 the spring of 1838, left England for Australia, for the purpose of 

 studying the natural productions of that country, of which, pre- 

 viously, so little had been made known, and soon after his return 

 in 1840, he commenced to publish his "Birds of Australia," in 

 which, from first to last, he laboured about ten yeax's. This is in 

 seven folio volumes, wherein we have six hundred species figured 

 and described from actual observations in their native haunts. 

 Connected with this work of surpassing beauty, and necessarily 

 large cost, there is a touching history. The wife of the naturalist 

 was the companion of the voyage. She had drawn on stone 

 nearly all the plates of the 'Birds of Eui'ope,' but her living 

 industry was interrupted, she died 'within one short year after 

 our retui'n from Australia,' says Mr. Gould in his preface; 'during 

 her sojourn in which country an immense mass of drawings, both 

 ornithological and botanical, were made by her inimitable hand 

 and pencil.' 



Mr. Gould is now engaged in the "Birds of Asia," and has 

 made good progress with "A Monograph of the Trochilidce, or 

 Humming Birds." The industry which has got together, and the 

 taste and. science which arranged the collection of about three 

 hundred species of these beautiful birds, which were exhibited a 

 year or two since in the Zoological Gardens, will be permanently 

 arranged in this book, the coloured engravings of which approach, 

 the brilliancy of the plumage of the birds themselves; a newly- 

 discovered process enabling the artist to give all their rich metallic 

 tints in a most vivid and life-like manner." 



We have now before us Mr. Gould's magnificent work on Hum- 

 ming Birds, of which ten parts are now published, containing one 

 hundred and fifty species, and wish we could give our readers only 

 a faint idea of the exquisite beauty of the life-like delineations; 

 the brilliancy of the colours is perfectly dazzling, and the forms of 



