John Gould and the slender-billed curlew

This guest blog was written by Ann Datta, Volunteer Art Cataloguer in the ZSL Library.

The slender-billed curlew, Numenius tenuirostris, is a wading bird that lived in fresh water habitats of Europe and northern Africa and was declared extinct in November 2024¹. The last recorded sighting of the bird was in 1995, and the species was never seen alive in Britain. In the nineteenth century, not much was known about the bird, however John Gould included it in his book The Birds of Europe², illustrated by his wife, Elizabeth Gould (1804-1841).

Gould had comparatively little to write about the slender-billed curlew, summarising what he knew in four short paragraphs. It was found in southern Europe, he wrote, and “Of its habits, manners &c. nothing is known, but they doubtless resemble those of the other members of the genus”. In the next paragraph, based on an examination of a specimen, he described the colour and pattern of the plumage, colour of the mandibles and legs, and “each feather having a large, heart-shaped mark in the centre, near the tip” which can be seen in Elizabeth’s illustration of an adult bird.  

Elizabeth drew the bird standing on a bank in a background of rushes and water, its right leg poised as if about to take a step forward. The beauty of Elizabeth’s figure is that she has depicted it life-size to duplicate exactly the details on the bird-skin. The Birds of Europe was published in imperial folio format, a very large book, measuring 22”x16” (or 559x406mm) that made it possible to visualise many of the birds described in acute detail.

At the time he wrote Birds of Europe, John Gould (1804-1881) was employed by the Zoological Society of London as Superintendent of the Ornithological Department of the Museum. It was to the Museum and John Gould that Charles Darwin brought his Galapagos birds for identification. At the time, Gould was energetically multi-tasking – combining his curatorial work at the Society with publishing expensive imperial folio colour plate books like Birds of Europe, writing papers on birds in the Society’s Proceedings, and running a taxidermy and natural history shop from his house in Soho. The Zoological Society of London gave Gould permission to dedicate Birds of Europe to the Society, and in June 1832 Gould proudly presented the Society with a copy of the first part, containing 20 hand-coloured lithographs of European birds by Elizabeth.

In the late 20th century, the slender-billed curlew was being reported as rare. One book³, published in 1983, adds little to Gould’s text about the bird’s life history, and has no comments about its nest and eggs or habitat commenting that ‘data inadequate’, ‘now nowhere common’, ‘now very rare’. It had, however, more to contribute on its external appearance at different ages and reported many more sightings, information gathered in the 150 years after Gould published.

References

1. Buchanan, G.M., Chapple, B., Berryman, A.J., Crockford, N., Jansen, J.J.F.J., Bond, A.L. (2024). Global extinction of Slender-Billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris). Ibis. https://doi.org/10.1111/ibi.13368
2.  Gould, J., 1832-37. The Birds of Europe. (London: The Author). 5 vols. 448 plates
3. Cramp, S. (editor) (1983). The Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The birds of the Western Palearctic Vol. 3. Waders to Gulls. (Oxford University Press). Pp. 496-500, pls 49, 52.