John Gould

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This article is about the ornithologist. For the former professional ice hockey player, see John Gould (hockey player). For the American humorist and columnist, see John Gould (columnist).

John Gould

John Gould (14 September 1804 – 3 February 1881) was an English ornithologist. The Gould League in Australia was named after him. His identification of Charles Darwin's finches was pivotal in the development of the theory of The Origin of Species.

Gould was born in Lyme Regis, Dorset, the son of a gardener. Shortly afterwards his father obtained a position on an estate near Guildford, Surrey, and then in 1818 became foreman in the Royal Gardens of Windsor. The young Gould started training as a gardener, and it was here that he became an expert in the art of taxidermy. In 1824 he set himself up in business in London as a taxidermist, and his skill led to him becoming the first Curator and Preserver at the museum of the Zoological Society of London in 1827.

Gould's position brought him into contact with the country's leading naturalists, and also meant that he was often the first to see new collections of birds given to the Society. In 1830 a collection of birds arrived from the Himalayas, many not previously described. Gould published these birds in A Century of Birds from the Himalayas (1830–1832). The text was by Nicholas Aylward Vigors and the illustrations were lithographed by Gould's wife Elizabeth. This work was followed by four more in the next seven years, with the text written by Gould himself, edited by his clerk Edwin Prince. Some of the illustrations were made by Edward Lear as part of his Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae in 1832. Lear however was in financial difficulty and he sold the entire set of lithographs to John Gould.

When Charles Darwin presented his mammal and bird specimens collected during the Voyage of the Beagle to the Geological Society of London at their meeting on 4 January 1837, the bird specimens were given to Gould for identification. He set aside his paying work and at the next meeting on 10 January reported that birds from the Galápagos Islands which Darwin had thought were blackbirds, "gross-bills" and finches were in fact "a series of ground Finches which are so peculiar" as to form "an entirely new group, containing 12 species." This story made the newspapers. In March Darwin met Gould again, learning that his Galápagos "wren" was another species of finch and the mockingbirds he had labelled by island were separate species rather than just varieties, with relatives on the South American mainland. Subsequently Gould advised that the smaller southern Rhea specimen that been had rescued from a Christmas dinner was a separate species which he named Rhea darwinii, whose territory overlapped with the northern rheas. Darwin had not bothered to label his finches by island, but others on the expedition had taken more care. He now sought specimens collected by captain Robert FitzRoy and crewmen. From them he was able to establish that the species were unique to islands, an important step on the development of his theory of evolution. Gould's work on the birds was published between 1838 and 1842 in five numbers as Part 3 of Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, edited by Charles Darwin.

In 1838 the Goulds sailed to Australia intending to study the birds of that country and be the first to produce a major work on the subject. They took with them the collector John Gilbert. They arrived in Tasmania in September, making the acquaintance of the governor Sir John Franklin and his wife. Gould and Gilbert collected on the island. In February 1839 Gould sailed to Sydney, leaving his pregnant wife with the Franklins. He travelled to his brother-in-law's station at Yarrundi, spending his time searching for bowerbirds in the Liverpool Range. In April he returned to Tasmania for the birth of his son. In May he sailed to Adelaide to meet Charles Sturt, who was preparing to lead an expedition to the Murray River. Gould collected in the Mount Lofty range and the Murray Scrubs, returning again to Hobart in July. He then travelled with his wife to Yarrundi. They returned home to England in May 1840.

Platypus: illustration from John Gould's The mammals of Australia (1845-1863).

The result of the trip was The Birds of Australia (1840–1848) - see selected digitised images from the published work. It included a total of 600 plates in seven volumes, 328 of which were new to science and named by Gould. He also published A Monograph of the Macropodidae, or Family of Kangaroos (1841–1842) and The Mammals of Australia (1849–1861) - see selected digitised images from the published work.

After his wife's death in 1841 Gould's books used illustrations by a number of artists, including Henry Constantine Richter and Joseph Wolf.

Throughout his professional life Gould had a strong interest in hummingbirds. He accumulated a collection of 320 species, which he exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Despite his interest Gould had never seen a live hummingbird. In May 1857 he travelled to the United States with his second son Charles. He arrived in New York too early in the season to see hummingbirds in that city, but on 21 May in Bartram's Gardens in Philadelphia he finally saw his first live bird, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. He then continued to Washington D.C. where he saw large numbers in the gardens of the Capitol. Gould attempted to return to England with live specimens, but not being aware of the conditions necessary to keep them they only lived for two months at most. Gould published his Monograph of Trochilidae in 1861.

The Gould League, founded in Australia in 1909, was named after him. This organisation gave many Australians their first introduction to birds, along with more general environmental and ecological education. One of its major sponsors was the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union, also known as Birds Australia.

His son Charles Gould was notable as geological surveyor.

[edit] References

The Ruling Passion of John Gould by Isabella Tree ISBN 0-7126-2158-X
Darwin, Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Michael Joseph, the Penguin Group, London 1991 ISBN 0-7181-3430-3
The Birds of Australia: in seven volumes by John Gould - all volumes fully digitised
The Bird Man - The Extraordinary Story of John Gould - Isabella Tree, 1991. ISBN 0-09-189579-0
Portraits of the Honorary Members of the Ipswich Museum (Portfolio of 60 lithographs by T.H. Maguire) (Publisher: George Ransome, Ipswich, 1846-1852).