SKETCH OF DR. ALFRED E. BREHM. 265 



studied the treasures of the Zoological Court-Museum at Vienna, under 

 the guidance of the recently deceased Leopold Joseph Fitzinger, its cus- 

 todian, he became as it were dead for any other than a scientific world, 

 and only the innate energy of his character enabled him to maintain a 

 fixed purpose in life. For every effort to establish himself was de- 

 feated in consequence of his having so long lived a wandering life in 

 Africa as is generally the case with extensive travelers, he had no 

 taste tor a sedentary career and it was, therefore, not strange to see 

 him starting off again in 1856. This time the field of his researches 

 was Spain and its bird-life, which a brother of his had already studied 

 to some extent. Then, in order to study an opposite region to this, he 

 went in 1860 to the North and visited Norway and Lapland. The fruit 

 of this journey was " Das Leben der Vugel" ("The Life of Birds"), 

 Glogau, 1861, and a general fame as a traveler and writer. He soon 

 afterward received an invitation from Duke Ernst of Saxe-Coburg- 

 Gotha to go with him on a hunting-journey to Bogosland and Abys- 

 sinia, which was begun in 1862. At the request of the duke, he worked 

 up the collected impressions and observations of this hasty expedition 

 in 1863 into "Ergebnisse einer Reise nach Habesch " ("Results of a 

 Journey to Habesch"), Hamburg, 1863. The physiognomic and sym- 

 pathetic tastes characteristic of Brehm are also prominent in this book. 

 He was at about the same time appointed director of the Thiergarten 

 in Hamburg, a position which furnished him an excellent opportunity 

 to add to his store of zoological observations. It must have been of 

 much value to him, for he had already conceived the idea of publishing 

 an " Illustrirtes Thierleben " on a grand scale. Nevertheless, he sur- 

 prised the world four years afterward by voluntarily giving up this 

 position and turning his back on Hamburg. 



Brehm was also too busy at that time with his own enterprises to 

 be a*ble to devote his whole powers to responsible positions. His 

 " Thierleben " occupied him closely, and required him to review the 

 whole store of observations which he had collected, especially in his 

 later years. What he himself thought of the subject is shown by the 

 following passage of the prospectus which he wrote for the second edi- 

 tion, in 1876 : " The activity of science has also worked fruitfully on 

 the public desire for knowledge. The nearer view that is given to it 

 of animals in Nature (in zoological gardens), the word spoken from 

 the professorial chairs of the schools, and its multiplied repetition in 

 writing and picture, have each supplying its part contributed to 

 spread, with the knowledge of animals, interest in them and apprecia- 

 tion of them. Thus, man's approach to the forms of creation nearest 

 related to him, his recognition of the existence and life of animals, 

 has taught him that this circle of living beings includes its own life 

 within itself, and simply with the entrance into it has much light 

 been shed over the problem of his own origin, which a rigid dogma 

 had long kept in darkness." In this passage he evidently referred to 



