couch] 
BRITISH ORNITHOLOGY 
149 
1836. The | Song Birds | of | Great Britain ; | containing | delineations of 
thirty-three Birds | of the natural size, (including the genus 
Sylvia of Latham.) | Coloured principally from living Specimens. 
| with | some account of their habits, and occasional directions | 
for their treatment in confinement. | By John Cotton, F.Z.S. 
[Quotation.] London : mdcccxxxvi. 
Collation— 1 vol. roy. 8vo, 33 col. pi. with descriptive text 
(unpaged). Privately printed, 1836. 
This is the second issue of the two parts combined in one volume. 
*1854-56. Beautiful Birds : Their Natural History ; including an account 
of their structure, habits, nidification, etc., etc. Edited, from 
the manuscript of the late John Cotton, Esq., F.Z.S., by Robert 
Tyas, B.A., &c. London (Houlston & Stornaman) : 1854-5-6. 
Collation — 3 vols. 12mo, issued in 36 monthly parts of 16 pp. 
and 1 col. pi. at 6d. each. The parts at first were paged separately, 
but in the latter half of the work consecutively. 
Chiefly comprises British (with a few foreign) birds. 
Couch (Jonathan), 1789-1870 
This well-known naturalist, born March 15 , 1789 , was 
the only child of Richard and Philippa Couch, belonging to 
a family long resident at Polperro, a small fishing village 
between Looe and Fowey. After receiving (says the writer of 
his life in the Diet. Nat. Biog.) a sound classical education in 
Cornish schools, and some years’ pupilage with local medical 
men, he entered the united medical schools of Guy’s and 
St. Thomas’s in 1808 ; and in 1809 or early in 1810 returned 
to Polperro, which he but rarely afterwards quitted, dying 
there on April 13 , 1870 , at the age of eighty-one. For sixty 
years he was the doctor and trusted adviser of the village 
and neighbourhood, and used with remarkable shrewdness and 
perseverance the great opportunities afforded to a naturalist 
at Polperro. About the age of sixteen he began a series of 
MS. volumes, entitled “ A Journal of Natural History.” He 
trained in succession a large number of fishermen to aid him 
in his pursuits, and the observations made at and near 
Polperro during his lifetime and since his death have not 
been equalled in value at any other British station. His best 
and most remembered work was, of course, that in connection 
with ichthyology. His History of the Fishes of the British 
