26o WILLIAM CRAWFORD WILLIAMSON 



If Williamson could have lived it would, I think, have given 

 him great pleasure to see the success, in his own country, of the 

 work which he inaugurated and the progress of the subject to 

 which he devoted the last 25 years of his life. I am happy to 

 believe that he felt in the evening of his days, that the period of 

 comparative neglect through which his work had passed, was at 

 an end. For myself, I may say that my work, since I knew 

 Williamson, owes its inspiration to him. But quite apart from 

 our scientific relations it is a great privilege to have known him. 

 Though his many-sided activity, as physician, professor, popular 

 lecturer, geologist, zoologist, botanist and artist involved an 

 amount of work which to us of a less strenuous generation is 

 almost inconceivable, Williamson was as far as possible from 

 being the mere student. His personality was intensely human. 

 He was a man of most decided likes and dislikes; his conver- 

 sation was often brilliant, and sometimes vigorous to an almost 

 startling degree. 



The grand old race of all-round naturalists found in William- 

 son its worthy culmination, and we can only regret that, from 

 the nature of the case, he can have no equal successor 1 . 



1 The portrait of Williamson is from a photograph kindly lent by Mrs Williamson, 

 and taken, as she informs me, at Torquay in or about 1876, when he was about 60. 



