XIV 
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
When, in 1855, the Zoological Society determined to abandon the 
idea of keeping up a separate Museum, to the British Museum was 
given the choice of securing whatever specimens were deemed of value 
to the national collection, and the choice of the birds was, I believe, left 
in the hands of my predecessor, Mr. George Robert Gray. The number 
of types which ought to have come to the British Museum and did not 
do so is considerable, and among the most important were the Hima¬ 
layan types of Gould’s * Century.’ Out of the ninety specimens which 
Vigors mentions as having been given by Gould to the Museum, I can find 
but three at the present day : viz., the type viAlcedo guttatus (purchased 
in 1881 with the rest of the Gould Collection), the male of Pterythius 
erythropterus, from the same source, and Coccothraustes icteroides, which 
seems really to be the only type of the £ Century ’ about which no doubt 
can exist (cf. Sharpe,Cat. B. xii. p. 44). Of Tarduspcecilopterus [== Merula 
boulboul\, spec, y of Seebohm’s fifth volume of the £ Catalogue ’ (p. 249), 
from the Gould Collection, may possibly have been one of the types. 
The same may be said of Cinclosoma ocellatum, of which spec, a of my 
seventh volume of the ‘ Catalogue ’ (p. 383) may possibly be the type. Of 
Cinclosoma variegatum specimens v, w, of the same volume (p. 360), from 
the Gould Collection, may perhaps be types *. In none of these cases, 
however, is there any proof of the fact. 
On the completion of the e Century,’ Gould seems to have been so far 
encouraged by the success of his first undertaking as to have commenced 
the publication of several folio works, the most important of which 
was his £ Birds of Europe.’ Assisted by his wife in the drawing of the 
plates, which were 449 in number, he appears to have published the whole 
of the five volumes between 1832 and 1837 ; but during the same time 
he was also occupied with the production of sundry other works. Thus 
in 1834 appeared a ‘ Monograph of the Pamphastidce, or Eamily of 
* N.B.—On p. 360 of vol. vii. of the ‘ Catalogue of Birds ’ for Cinclosoma erythrojoterum read 
C. erythrocejohalum. 
