260 OBITUARY X 



intellectual employment : it required so much skill 

 to judge where to find most game, and to hunt the 

 dogs well " (I. p. 43), was by no means so sophis- 

 tical as he seems to have been ready to admit. 



In 1825, Dr. Darwin came to the very just con- 

 clusion that his son Charles would do no good by 

 remaining at Shrewsbury School, and sent him to 

 join his elder brother Erasmus, who was studying 

 medicine at Edinburgh, with the intention that 

 the younger son should also become a medical 

 practitioner. Both sons, however, were well aware 

 that their inheritance would relieve them from the 

 urgency of the struggle for existence which most 

 professional men have to face ; and they seemed to 

 have allowed their tastes, rather than the medical 

 curriculum, to have guided their studies. Erasmus 

 Darwin was debarred by constant ill-health from 

 seeking the public distinction which his high in- 

 telligence and extensive knowledge would, under 

 ordinary circumstances, have insured. He took 

 no great interest in biological subjects, but his 

 companionship must have had its influence on 

 his brother. Still more was exerted by friends 

 like Coldstream and Grant, both subsequently 

 well-known zoologists (and the latter an enthu- 

 siastic Lamarck ian), by whom Darwin was induced 

 to interest himself in marine zoology. A notice 

 of the ciliated germs of Flustra, communicated to 

 the Plinian Society in 1826, was the first fruits of 

 Darwin's half century of scientific work. Occa- 



