BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
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last-named work he published the ‘Mammals of Australia,’ which 
lasted from 1845 to 1860. This was one of the most important 
works ever attempted by Gould, and he has often told me that he 
considered that he deserved more praise for bringing out this work 
than for any other which he attempted, because he did it for the love 
of science only, knowing well that it could never be remunerative. 
After the ‘ Birds of Australia ’ were completed, Gould made an offer 
of the whole of his collection of birds and eggs to the Trustees of the 
British Museum; the account of the offer is given in the ‘Portraits of Men 
of Eminence,’ and is no doubt authentic :—“ He was naturally anxious 
that the specimens figured in the ‘ Birds of Australia,’ most of which 
were new and of the utmost rarity and value, especially as being the 
original types of the species, should be preserved in the British Museum. 
They comprised examples of both sexes of nearly every known 
species of Australian bird, 1800 specimens in all, in various stages 
of plumage, each carefully labelled with the scientific name and the 
name of the place where killed; and they were, of course, mostly new to 
our National Museum. A sum of two thousand pounds having been 
spent in the expedition by which they were acquired, it was not to be 
expected that Mr. Gould could present them as a donation. He offered 
them to the Trustees for the moderate sum of £1000 in money, or as a 
gift if they would purchase twenty-five copies of his work. The offer 
was declined, and Mr. Gould was induced, under his disappointment, to 
accept £1000, immediately tendered for the collection by an American, 
for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.” 
It is not for the present waiter, who of all men has felt most keenly 
the absence of the Gould collection, with its hundreds of types, from the 
series of bird-skins in the British Museum, to criticise the action of the 
officers of the British Museum at this distant date, but there can be no 
doubt that scientifically the loss of this historical series was nothing 
