Australian Museum

This guide to the Australian Museum in Sydney opens with William Holmes, a carpenter hired to build display cases who became the museum's first paid employee in 1829, oddly appointed Zoologist despite no scientific training. It follows his two years shooting and stuffing birds for the young collection, before an 1831 expedition north to Moreton Bay to collect a cockatoo, with a convict assistant named Samuel Saunders along for the trip. Look for the oldest gallery in the country, opened here in 1857.