John Gould (1804-1881), ornithologist, traveller in Australia 1838-1840

6 autograph letters, signed, by Gould, chiefly concerning Australia (mainly its natural history):

7830/15: to the anatomist Sir Richard Owen (1804-1892), 22 Sep 1840, saying that he is sending him a list of specimens and a number of "entire bodies" for dissection, among them a koala, musk rat, the kangaroo rat, a small new animal nearly allied to the shrew and many birds, all peculiar to Australia.

7830/16: to Dr N Sancerotte of St. Petersburg, 17 Jun 1847, concerning a New Zealand species of apteryx that Gould has named after Richard Owen.

7830/17: to the Royal Library of Paris, 14 Feb 1850, concerning his new work the Birds of Asia which he says is of "infinitely greater interest and importance than any I have hitherto attempted".

7830/18: to A [Peckorer?], 1 Mar 1850, sending the published parts of Mammals of Australia and also 25 specimens of quadrupeds and birds for the museum.

7830/19: to Dr Schimper, Director of the Museum of Natural History, 8 May 1853, collecting subscriptions owed for his books on birds and mammals of Australia.

7830/20: to Sir Paul Edmond de Strzelecki (1796-1873), concerning a work on the geology of Australia, possibly his Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land (London, 1845), and early information on the auriferous products of Australia. (Count Strzelecki, a Polish nobleman, explorer and geologist is said to have been the first person to discover gold in Australia, around 1839-1840).

1840-1856

6 items

Database description transcribed from Richard Aspin and Christopher Hilton's typescript supplement to S.A.J Moorat's Catalogue of Western Manuscripts