Of all the changes to the study of ornithology in the past 200 years, the most striking, when reading John Gould’s seven-volume 1848 treatise The Birds of Australia, is the apparent lack of interest among modern scientists in what their subjects taste like.

Gould left no such questions unanswered. The prototype of his beautifully illustrated guide, digitised and made available online by the State Library of New South Wales, contains many tips for the keen sportsman on how best to shoot each of the featured birds and, where Gould had opportunity to sample them, what they tasted like.

Parrots, he wrote, were so good he never turned them down.

Of particular note was the Tasmanian rosella or Platycercus caledonicus, which is listed in volume five as the yellow-bellied parakeet.

“Most of my readers are doubtless aware that Parrots are frequently eaten by man, but few of them are, perhaps, prepared to hear that many species of the family constitute at certain seasons a staple portion of the food of the settlers,” Gould writes.

The Tasmanian rosella had the dubious honour of being the tastiest of the parrots Gould sampled

“Soon after the establishment of the colonies of Van Diemen’s Land, pies made of the bird here represented were commonly eaten at every table, and even at the present time are not of unfrequent occurrence. It was not long after my arrival in the country before I tested the goodness of the flesh of this bird as a viand, and I found it so excellent that I partook of it whenever an opportunity for my doing so presented itself. It is delicate, tender, and well-flavoured.”

That flavour can probably be attributed to the parrot being a fat, fairly inactive herbivore – attributes that apply to most related species, Gould says, although when it comes to eating, “I consider the present bird to be in this respect preeminent.”

Gould travelled to Australia with his wife, Elizabeth, who was also a celebrated ornithological illustrator, in 1838, stopping first in Tasmania and spending two years travelling from Sydney to Adelaide before returning to England. He collected, dissected, stuffed and painted countless specimens and had still more shipped to him from colonists who had already forced themselves upon the land.

Elizabeth, who died upon the couple’s return to England in 1841, illustrated 84 of the plates in the volume now digitised, which was the original used by artists to copy the drawings for each individual volume in the first print run of 250.

Gould named one of the birds sent to him the Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae), in memory of his wife.

“I feel assured that in dedicating this bird to the memory of Mrs Gould, I shall have the full sanction of all who were personally acquainted with her, as well as those who only knew her by her delicate works as an artist,” Gould wrote. He also dedicated the book to her.

John Gould named the Gouldian finch for his late wife Elizabeth, who ‘laboured so hard and so zealously assisted me with her pencil in my various works’

A conservationist, despite his propensity to shoot everything from wandering albatross to emu wrens, Gould lamented the loss of species as a result of the white man’s invasion.

In the entry on the semipalmated goose (magpie goose, Anseranas semipalmata) he said its dwindling numbers on the Hawkesbury river were “affording another instance that the progress of civilisation invariably leads to the gradual extirpation of the more conspicuous of the natural productions of the countries over which it extends its sway”.

At the time of Gould’s visit, birds such as the Australian bustard (Ardeotis australis) were still commendably ignorant of the dangers of the wandering ornithologist.

“I have killed it with small shot from my double-barrelled gun,” he writes. “To succeed in getting sufficiently near, however, it is necessary to bring in the aid of a horse, and to approach in circles, gradually closing in upon it, before it takes wing, which it readily does by running quickly a few yards, thereby gaining an impetus which enables it to rise.”

Cape Barren geese (Cereopsis novaehollandiae), which he lists as Cereopsis geese, were also to be recommended for being both plentiful on Tasmania and nearby islands and being so tame that they “might easily be knocked down with sticks”.

Gould wrote of Cape Barren geese that ‘all who have tasted it agree in extolling its delicacy and flavour’

“It appears to be strictly a vegetable feeder … consequently its flesh is excellent, and all who have tasted it agree in extolling its delicacy and flavour,” Gould writes. “It bears confinement remarkably well, but is by no means a desirable addition to the farmyard; for it is so pugnacious, that it not only drives all other birds before it, but readily attacks pigs, dogs, or any other animal that may approach, and often inflicts severe wounds with its hard and sharp bill.”

Also prone to Englishmen wandering about with a stick was the blue reef heron (Egretta sacra, now more commonly known as the eastern reef heron), a bird for which Gould relied on the account of a Mr McGillivary, who said: “Although generally a wary bird eve when little disturbed by man, yet on one occasion on Heron Island I knocked down several with a stick.”

Ditto southern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes chrysocome).

“It is somewhat more lively than the other species of the genus, but is still so stupid as to admit of being knocked down with a stick, when on land, and is frequently so regardless as to suffer itself to be taken with the hand,” Gould quotes from an account by a man named Latham.

But Latham’s account mentions others who said the penguin “when provoked ran at the sailors in flocks, pecked their legs and spoiled their clothes”.

When captured, Gould noted that little penguins ‘offer no other resistance than a smart peck’

Gould himself had success capturing little penguins (Eudyptula minor, listed by Guild as Spheniscus minor), noting: “From their incapacity for running and their total inability to fly, the parent bids are very easily captured, and when taken with the hand offer no other resistance than a smart peck with the bill.”

Australian white ibises (Threskiornis molucca) were more difficult, displaying the same survival instinct that, 180 years later, has led them to live off the contents of the bins in city suburbs.

The ‘watchful’ Australian white ibis

Gould notes that when they roosted in trees, the ibises became so watchful that they “could not be approached within gun-shot without the utmost caution”.

Even the ibis does not approach the difficulty of the superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae), the shooting of which apparently involved a complicated process of deception involving thick bushes to crouch behind, a shrill whistle to attract attention and the tail feathers of some previously departed male bird plunged into a hat.

“Advantage must be taken of this circumstance immediately, or the next moment it may be halfway down the gully,” Gould writes.

‘Were I requested to suggest an emblem for Australia among its birds, I should without the slightest hesitation select the Menura novaehollandiae (superb lyrebird) as the most appropriate’

Only Aboriginal hunters, he says, could catch a lyrebird without resorting to this thoroughly embarrassing subterfuge. He makes frequent passing mention of Aboriginal guides who educated him about the local birdlife but only one – Natty, who showed him a lyrebird nest – is mentioned by name.

When Gould had not eaten a particular bird himself, he relied on secondary sources.

He attributed to a man named Mr Cunningham the observation that emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae) taste like “coarse beef” and are “good and sweet eating; indeed nothing can be more delicate than the flesh of the young ones”.

He also imparted Cunningham’s warning about the difficulty of hauling one home, quoting: “There is but little fit for culinary use upon any part of the emu, except the hindquarters, which are of such dimensions that the shouldering of two hind-legs homewards for a mile distance once proved to me as tiresome a task as I ever recollect to have encountered in the colony.”

On the joys of hunting emus, he delivered mixed reports: a Captain Curry said it “affords excellent coursing, equalling, if not surpassing, the same sport with the hare in England”; while the same Mr Cunningham warned it was difficult to use dogs against them “because the injuries it inflicts upon them by striking out with its feet are frequently very severe”.

The Birds of Australia was published in London in 1848. It’s unclear how the prototype copy made its way to Australia.

It was among the contents of Gould’s workrooms which, after his death in 1881, were bought by a London book dealer named Henry Sotheran. It later turned up in the library of the Technological College in Sydney.

The college donated the volume to the state library in 1947. A spokeswoman from the library said its whereabouts in the middle years remained a mystery.

The full seven volumes may be read at the State Library of NSW website.