Creator Gould's Mammals of Australia (1845-1863)

Date 1863

So enchanted by the Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) Gould made the remarkable monotreme Plate 1 of his Mammals of Australia, writing:. '...I frequently met with it both while ascending the rivers in Van Diemen’s Land and while encamped beside the quiet pools of New South Wales... it is common in the streams and rivers flowing from the mountain ranges to the sea, as well as in those descending towards the interior. It is equally numerous in all the tributaries which feed the great rivers Darling and Murray; and if it be not now plentiful in the Hawkesbury, Hunter, ... the diminution in its numbers is solely due to the wholesale destruction dealt out to it by the settlers, which, if not restrained, will ere long lead to the utter extirpation of this harmless and inoffensive animal, a circumstance which would be much to be regretted; it is in fact often killed from mere wantonness, or at most for no more useful purpose than to make slippers'

Source: Smithsonian Library