22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [ch. ii. 



I can remember the exact appearance of certain posts, old 

 trees and banks where I made a good capture. The pretty 

 Panagmis crux-major was a treasure in those days, and here 

 at Down I saw a beetle running across a walk, and on pick- 

 ing it up instantly perceived that it differed slightly from 

 P. crux-major, and it turned out to be P. quadripunctatus, 

 which is only a variety or closely allied species, differing 

 from it very slightly in outline. I had never seen in those 

 old days Licinus alive, which to an uneducated eye hardly 

 differs from many of the black Carabidous beetles ; but my 

 sons found here a specimen, and I instantly recognised that 

 it was new to me ; yet I had not looked at a British beetle 

 for the last twenty years. 



I have not yet mentioned a circumstance which influ- 

 enced my whole career more than any other. This was my 

 friendship with Professor Henslow. Before coming up to 

 Cambridge, I had heard of him from my brother as a man 

 who knew every branch of science, and I was accordingly 

 prepared to reverence him. He kept open house once every 

 week * when all undergraduates and some older members of 

 the University, who were attached to science, used to meet 

 in the evening. I soon got, through Fox, an invitation, and 

 went there regularly. Before long I became well acquainted 

 with Henslow, and during the latter half of my time at Cam- 

 bridge took long walks with him on most days ; so that I 

 was called by some of the dons " the man who walks with 

 Henslow ; " and in the evening I was very often asked to 

 join his family dinner. His knowledge was great in botany, 

 entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. His 

 strongest taste was to draw conclusions from long-continued 

 minute observations. His judgment was excellent, and his 

 whole mind well-balanced ; but I do not suppose that any 

 one would say that he possessed much original genius. 



He was deeply religious, and so orthodox, that he told 

 me one day he should be grieved if a single word of the 

 Thirty-nine Articles were altered. His moral qualities were 

 in every way admirable. He was free from every tinge of 

 vanity or other petty feeling; and I never saw a man who 

 thought so little about himself or his own concerns. His 

 temper was imperturbably good, with the most winning and 



* The Cambridge Ray Club, which in 1887 attained its fiftieth anniversary, 

 is the direct descendant of these meetings, having been founded to fill the 

 blank caused by the discontinuance, in 1836, of Ifenslow's Friday evenings. 

 See Professor Babington's pamphlet, The Cambridge Kay Club, 1887. 



