" Little Wood Swallow "

"The Birds of Australia" was completed in 36 parts between 1840 and 1848 and with the 1869 Supplement the work totalled at 681 hand-coloured lithograph plates. The work has been described as "undoubtedly the greatest of Gould's eighteen works" by the Naturalist A.H. Chisholm. Certainly these images have a deserved place in the front rank of ornithological prints. It is known that several people commissioned to conduct field work in the quest for undiscovered specimens for this ornithology met violent deaths in the pursuit of science.