John Gould Birds

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John Gould was born in Lyme, England in 1804. He had very humble beginnings as the son of a working class gardener. Without a formal education, university training or connections in the world of science and zoology he rose to the lofty heights of Fellow of the Royal Society and Vice President of The Zoological Society.

His output was prodigious. In his lifetime he was responsible for the publication of over 3,000 lithographs. As G. Sauer says in John Gould The Bird Man “In the field of natural history, the accomplishments of John Gould in his 76 years of life from 1804 to 1881 are truly monumental. No other ornithologist has ever exceeded the number of Gould’s bird discoveries and the magnitude and splendour of his folio publications.”