William Gould (naturalist)

He was described by Horace Donisthorpe as "the father of British myrmecology",[1] the branch of entomology dealing with ants.

Gould was born at Sharpham Park, Glastonbury, Somerset, son of Davidge Gould, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1732, aged 17; he gained his B.

In May 1774 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society[2] He is most famous for his book, An Account of English Ants, published in London by Andrew Millar in 1747.

[3] It was the first scientific paper written on ants, with 109 pages, and brought together all previous observation into a single volume.

When it was published it was quite controversial, since Gould, albeit reluctantly, conceded that his observations directly contradicted the Bible, specifically Proverbs 6:6-8, where it was written: Gould, however, correctly stated that there was no evidence at all to suggest that any of the British ant species he knew hoarded grain.