Daniel Giraud Elliot (1835-1915)
Daniel Giraud Elliot was an American zoologist and one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the American Ornithologists’ Union, and also curator of zoology at the Field Museum in Chicago. Elliot used his wealth to publish a series of sumptuous color-plate books on birds and animals. He wrote the text himself and commissioned artists such as Joseph Wolf and Joseph Smit, both of whom had worked for John Gould, to provide the illustrations. The books included A Monograph of the Phasianidae (Family of the Pheasants) (1870-72), A Monograph of the Paradiseidae or Birds of Paradise (1873), A Monograph of the Felidae or Family of Cats (1878) and Review of the Primates (1913).