Gilbert travelled by boat to Port Essington, north of where Darwin is today. There, he collected, among many other things, a beautiful, newly discovered finch and returned with it to Gould in England. there he found his employer mourning his wife, Elizabeth, who had died after the birth of their eighth child. She was just 37. Gould named the finch after his wife, so Elizabeth is remembered today in this gorgeous little bird, called not Elizabeth's finch, but more cryptically, the "Gouldian finch". As Elizabeth was the illustrator of all the works, not her husband, Gould then needed to recruit other artists to finish the work that Elizabeth had tirelessly begun.