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GENDER, ROYALTY, AND SEXUALITY IN JOHN GOULD'S BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA

WHEN THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGIST and bird illustrator John Gould launched his monumental publication on The Birds of Australia late in 1840, the cover of the serial parts bore the image of the lyre bird (Menura superba) and a prominent dedication, “by permission,” to the young and recently-married Queen Victoria (Correspondence 2: 213; see Figure 4). A few months later, issuing the part with the plate and descriptive text for the lyre bird, Gould declared Menura superba “an emblem for Australia among its birds” (Birds of Australia vol. 3, plate 14; see Figure 5). This visual juxtaposition of Victoria and the lyre bird also reflected an association between them in Gould's mind, the lyre bird serving as emblem not only for the Australian colonies but also for their Queen. The association became more explicit and was extended to include Victoria's Consort in the decades that followed, for although The Birds of Australia was completed in 1848, Gould issued irregular supplemental installments during the 1850s and 60s and published a two-volume Handbook to the Birds of Australia in 1865. One of the first discoveries Gould announced and figured in the Supplement was a new species of lyre bird, which he named Menura alberti in 1850 to acknowledge Prince Albert's “personal virtues” and “liberal support.” In 1862, in a tribute likely inspired by the recent death of the Prince, Gould divided Menura superba into two species and christened the newly-created one Menura victoriae, thereby providing his grieving queen with an avian namesake to accompany Albert's.