completion of his gigantic enterprise. The work was therefore stopped
after the appearance of pa rt 2 ; and these two cancelled parts of Gould’s
‘ Birds of Australia ’ are among the rarest of his works.
Gould le ft England in May 1888 and returned in August 1840,
after exploring Yan Diemen’s Land, Bass’s Straits, South Australia, and
New South Wales, into th e interior of which country he penetrated
to th e distance of nearly four hundred miles from the coast-line.
800 species were added to the list of th e Australian Avifauna hy this
adventurous journey of Gould and his assistants. Gilbert, who had
worked under him a t th e Zoological Society, was sent by Gould to
the western and northern parts of Australia and discovered many
novelties. He th en revisited England in September 1841, after two
years of labour in the field, and returned to Swan River in the spring
of 1842; and on the 28th of Ju n e in th e same year he was killed
by natives during Leichardt’s expedition, to which he had attached
himself.
During Gould’s absence his business affairs had been attended to
by his fa ith fu l secretary, Mr. E. C. Prince, a most amiable and conscientious
man, whom I knew personally when I first came to London,
and from whom I heard many anecdotes of his patron’s early struggles.
Mr. Prince entered Mr. Gould’s service shortly before the la tte r went to
A u stra lia ; and he is especially thanked for his administration of the
traveller’s affairs during his absence, in the “ In tro d u c tio n ” to the
‘ Birds of Australia.’ At the time of leaving for his travels in the
southern hemisphere, Gould had made seven thousand pounds hy his
publications, so I was told in after years hy his secretary; and it
shows th e marvellous self-reliance of the man, to undertake the long
journey to Australia (a much more arduous business fifty years ago
th a n it is now) for the purpose of procuring specimens and sketches
of th e country, th a t his work, on his re tu rn to England, might he
more perfect. This great achievement has been righ tly lauded h y all
Gould’s biographers; and although in la te r years there have been men
who have undertaken hazardous explorations for th e purpose of
completing th e ir knowledge of th e n a tu ra l history of a country, there
have been none which produced such ample results.
On his re tu rn to England, Gould a t once recommenced th e publication
of his great work on th e ‘ Birds of Australia,’ th e first p a rt of which
appeared in 1840; and in 1848, th e seven volumes, w ith th e ir six
hundred plates, were completed. No p a rt of th e work was more
interesting th an the account of th e Petrels, a family of birds to which
the author had devoted th e greatest attention. While in Australia,
Mrs. Gould lived for some time with Sir Jo h n and Lady Eranklin, and
in Government House a t H o b a rt Town th e ir youngest son was horn and
named E ran k lin Gould afte r th e ir k in d entertainers. W ith in a year of
his re tu rn to England Gould had the misfortune to lose his wife, a shock
from which he never entirely recovered, and his la te r years were
further saddened by th e loss of two of his sons, both of whom
had adopted the medical profession. Dr. Henry Gould died in Sinde,
and Dr. Eranklin Gould in the Bed Sea, on his way between Aden
and Suez, on the 19th of March, 1873. The third son, Charles, occupied
an important post in Australia as a Government Geologist, and retired
shortly before his father’s death, since which date he has been travelling
in China and Japan.
After the death of Mrs. Gould, it was long before her husband
could find a competent a rtist to supply her place; b u t he was a t
length fortunate enough to secure th e services of Mr. Richter, who
was a skilful lithographer, and the work th en progressed without
interruption. Simultaneously he commenced th e publication of a
< Monograph of the Macropodidce, or Eamily of Kangaroos,’ which was
begun in 1841 and finished in 1844, and in continuation of the
c