J. G. Wood

John George Wood (1827–1889) was an English clergyman and one of the most widely read popularizers of natural history in the Victorian age. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, and ordained in the Church of England, he gave up parish work to write and lecture. Common Objects of the Country (1858) sold in vast numbers, and it was followed by Homes Without Hands, on the dwellings animals build, and a multi-volume Illustrated Natural History. In The Uncivilized Races of Men he turned to ethnography, gathering travelers' reports from around the world. He lectured widely in Britain and the United States, often sketching animals on a blackboard as he spoke.