| Activity | Although Gould started his career as a taxidermist, the path to his eventual fame came when in the late 1820s the Zoological Society of London, where he worked, received a collection of birds from the Himalaya Mountains. Gould had the idea of preparing a set of hand-colored lithographs from the specimens, and set himself up in business, including hiring artists to work from his sketches, to do just that. Success in this first venture set the pattern for later ones. For a period Gould moved to Australia, where he did much of his own collecting, both of mammals and birds, and these efforts, together with materials constantly being supplied to him by other naturalist travelers, eventually led to the production of a total of fifty folio volumes over his career. Gould was also the author of many scientific papers, mostly involving the descriptions of new species. He donated several specimens to the Natural History Museum. He was also instrumental in identifying the Galapagos finches that formed part of the key evidence for Darwin's' theory of the evolution by natural selection
In 1825 he opened his taxidermy shop in London, and in 1828 he was hired as an animal preserver at the Zoological Society of London's Museum, and in 1833 he was promoted to superintendant of the ornithological department of the society. He resigned in 1838 to travel and collect in Australia until 1840. In 1843 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1857 he travelled to North America where he met and dined with President Buchanan. |