a palaeontologist. In 1857, he took over the National Museum of Natural History and Geology in Melbourne. He convinced the Melbourne University and state Government to house the museum at the university. After a new building for it was constructed, it was re-opened as the National Museum of Victoria in 1864. McCoy built up significant natural history and geological collections for the museum, as well as spending a substantial sum setting up a reference library to assist the scientific research undertaken by the Museum's first curators. McCoy was in correspondence with several prominent scientists and collectors of the time, including John Gould, from whom he purchased specimens, including mammals, insects, shells, and bird skins, as well as copies of Gould's scientific publications for the museum. McCoy, on becoming associated with the Geological Survey of Victoria as palaeontologist, composed the volumes concerning his field as Prodromus of the Palaeontology of Victoria (1874–82). He also issued the Prodromus of the Zoology of Victoria (1885–90). He was president of the Royal Society of Victoria in 1864 and vice-president in 1861 and 1870. Frederick McCoy described three species of Australia's venomous snakes during 1878–1879, including Oxyuranus microlepidotus, commonly known as the inland taipan or fierce snake, which is considered to be the world's most venomous snake. McCoy helped to found a society intended to introduce exotic animals to Australia by "acclimatisation", responsible for the release of fish, mammals and flocks of birds with an often disastrous ecological impact; the Acclimatisation Society would later be renamed the Victorian Zoological Society. McCoy sought to replace what he perceived as the silence or unpleasant noises of the Australian bush with sounds of English songbirds, and celebrated the successful introduction of the european rabbit and starling which were already recognised as pests by the colonial farmers. Creationism McCoy was a Christian creationist who rejected evolution and natural selection. He argued that the paleontological record offered evidence of the sudden appearance and disappearance of species. The abrupt appearance of species was the result of supernatural plan. He thus supported a form of progressive creationism. W. R. Gerdtz, in a 2001 paper in The Victorian Naturalist, noted that "McCoy's belief in the Creator's perfect and universal plan of successive creation appeared to be contradicted by the fossil evidence McCoy himself described." Late life McCoy contributed many papers to local societies, and continued his active scientific work for fifty-eight years –