14 WILLIAM KEITH BROOKS 



nomena. And his life was such that it made all around him feel 

 in some measure the charm of the naturalist's calling. 



Although the great and lasting debt, which all who came under 

 his instruction owe to him, springs from the inspiration that un- 

 consciously passed from him to us, it was his personal qualities, 

 his gentleness, his kindliness, his thoughtfulness of others, as well 

 as the quaint humor that characterized so many of his acts and 

 sayings, that humanized and endeared him to his students. His 

 capacity for sympathy was never shown more strikingly than dur- 

 ing those dark days that followed upon the death of Professor 

 Humphrey and Dr. Conant from yellow fever after the disastrous 

 expedition to Jamaica in 1897. All who were there at the time 

 will recall how deeply moved he was, nor will any of us be likely 

 to forget the simple sincerity of the man as he stood among us and 

 talked of the nobility of the sacrifice of a life for the sake of others 

 and for the cause of science. 



I think my earliest definite recollection of Professor Brooks is 

 of seeing him walk into the lecture room in an undergraduate 

 class wearing a long rubber overcoat which he proceeded at once to 

 use on himself for the purpose of illustrating the morphological rela- 

 tions of the squid's mantle, while holding out the upturned collar 

 to demonstrate the position of the siphon. I still have my notes 

 on his undergraduate lectures and in reading them over I am 

 struck afresh by the recollection of their clearness and beauty, 

 although the subjects upon which he talked before the class fol- 

 lowed each other without apparent order or relation. As I later 

 learned while acting as his assistant, he was apt to lecture upon 

 anything that he happened to be thinking about at the time, not 

 infrequently changing the subject at the very last moment, to 

 the dismay of the assistant who would then have to prepare has- 

 tily an entirely different set of charts and specimens from those 

 which he had been previously instructed to have ready. 



When I began my graduate work in zoology, I was, like every 

 one else at the start, cast adrift, to sink or swim ; and for all one 

 knew at the time, Brooks seemed absolutely indifferent as to the 

 outcome. He had given me a bottle containing a few shriveled 

 and collapsed specimens of Doliolum, with instructions to work 



