X 
BIOGKRAPHICAL MEMOIE. 
John Gould was born at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, on the 14th of 
September, 1804, and when quite an infant his parents went to live 
at Stoke Hill, near Guildford, and it was in this beautiful neighbour¬ 
hood that the child first imbibed his notions of the beauty of natural life. 
In the year 1818, when the future great ornithologist was fourteen 
years old, his father received a good appointment in the Loyal Gardens 
at Windsor under Mr. J. T. Aiton, and there the boy assisted his father 
in gardening. He always remembered these youthful days in later life, 
when he would recount how he had picked many a bunch of dandelions 
for Queen Charlotte’s dandelion-tea. He had now begun to study birds 
in earnest, and he made the acquaintance of many British species for the 
first time in the royal domain; while there is no doubt that the botanical 
knowledge acquired at this time also stood him in good stead at a later 
period. After some years spent at Windsor, during which time he had 
already established a reputation for skilful taxidermy, Gould was sent by 
Mr. Aiton to Yorkshire, where he was placed under the care of Mr. Legge, 
gardener at Sir William Ingleby’s seat at Ripley Castle, for the purpose 
of studying the higher branches of forcing. He does not, however, seem 
to have stayed long in the north of England ; for in 1827 he was back in 
London, and had obtained an appointment at the Zoological Society, which 
then had its rooms in Bruton Street. The exact nature of his appointment 
appears to be doubtful, as Vigors, in the Introduction to the ‘ Century,’ 
speaks of Gould as “ Superintendent ” of the ornithological collection of 
the Zoological Society, whereas he is elsewhere spoken of as £e Curator ” 
to the Zoological Society. My friend Mr. Gerrard remembers him in 
these early days as a man of singular energy, with a good knowledge of 
the art of mounting animals, and indeed some of the best taxidermists 
in England were working under Gould at that time—such men as Baker, 
Gilbert, and others. At that time Vigors and Broderip were the moving 
spirits of the Zoological Society, then in its infancy, and from the former 
naturalist Gould received great encouragement. Vigors was an Irish 
