Red-Breasted Fly-CatcherBy John Gould

John Gould (1804 – 1881) was an English ornithologist whose lithographs of finches were not only works of exceptional beauty and detail, but also were crucial to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. He started studying birds and taxidermy while assisting his father, a gardener, in the Royal Gardens of Windsor and was later hired by the Zoological Society of London to oversee their ornithological collections. Called “England’s Audubon,” he published over 3,300 color plates of birds that were instrumental to studies in Australia, Europe, New Guinea and Asia. At the time of his death, his unsold works weighed nearly three tons.