Gould's Birds

There are no birds illustrated in Frederick McCoy's Prodromus of the Zoology of Victoria, for the simple reason that John Gould had already covered the territory.

From 1840 to 1848 Gould published seven volumes of The Birds of Australia, illustrating every Australian species then known to science across 600 magnificent plates. As new species were discovered, Gould portrayed them in his Supplement to the Birds of Australia, issued between 1851 and 1869, which included a further 81 plates.

McCoy could not hope to match either the scale of Gould's portfolios or his productivity, wisely concentrating his efforts on other, lesser-known classes of animal. He did however send some interesting specimens to Gould, including the Rufous Bristlebird later described and illustrated in the Supplement.

Both men described birds which they believed were new to science, only to discover that the other had almost simultaneously published a description. Gould's account of the Helmeted Honeyeater took priority, as it was accompanied with an illustration.

Towards the end of his life, Gould honoured McCoy, 'to whom so much of the progress of science in the Australian colonies is due', by naming a subspecies of the Double-eyed Fig-Parrot, 'M'Coy's Perroquet'. As was the case with the Rufous Bristlebird, McCoy had independently published a description of the bird in the Annals of Natural History Review.