402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Such is a skeleton clironology of a life than -which none more 

 active, varied, and useful, is recorded in scientific biography. For the 

 story of the lives of many men of science we have to be satisfied with 

 a skeleton almost as meager as this ; but happily that is not the case 

 with Frank Buckland. He has, in the papers constituting his " Cu- 

 riosities," and in " Land and Water," so revealed himself in his inner 

 life, with his thoughts, feelings, and purposes, and his friends and the 

 brother-in-law who has prepared his biography have given such vivid 

 descriptions of him as they saw him, that the man is made to stand 

 out before us almost as in his very life and personality. 



From these sources we learn that, when weighed shortly after his 

 birth, the infant Frank was found to be heavier than the leg of mutton 

 provided for the family dinner of that day ; and that a birch-tree was 

 planted in honor of his arrival, the taste of the twigs of which he 

 learned to know well. His early years, as described in his mother's 

 journal, reflected in miniature his character in maturer life. For facts, 

 especially of natural history, he had from childhood a most tenacious 

 memory. At four years of age he began collecting specimens, and at 

 seven he commenced a journal. Earlier than this, at two and a half 

 years of age, " he would have gone through all the natural history 

 books in the Radclifife Library without making an error in miscalling 

 a parrot, a duck, a kingfisher, an owl, or a vulture." When he was 

 four years old a clergyman brought to Dr. Buckland, from a consid- 

 erable distance, some " very curious fossils." They were shown to 

 the child, who, not yet able to speak plainly, said, " They are the verte- 

 brae of an ichthyosaurus." At three years of age his mother could 

 get him to learn nothing by rote. His mind was always at work on 

 what he saw, and he was very impatient of doing that which was not 

 manifest to his senses, yet he was not considered premature. He ex- 

 celled in apparently strong reasoning powers, and a most tenacious 

 memory as to facts. He was always asking questions, and never for- 

 got the answers he received, if they were such as he could compre- 

 hend. And he was always wanting to see everything done, or to 

 know how it was done ; and was never happy unless he could see the 

 relation between cause and effect. 



It was not surprising, as Buckland's biographer remarks, that his 

 love of nature should grow with his growth, for it was inherited from 

 both parents, and was encouraged by every association of his youth. 

 "In his early home at Christ Church, besides the stuffed creatures 

 which shared the hall with the rocking-horse, there were cages full of 

 snakes, and of green frogs, in the dining-room, where the sideboard 

 groaned under successive layers of fossils, and the candles stood on 

 ichthyosauri's vertebrae. Guinea-pigs were often running over the 

 table. In the stable-yard and large wood-house were the fox, rabbits, 

 Guinea-pigs, and ferrets, hawks, and owls, the magpie, and the jack- 

 daw, besides dogs, cats, and poultry, and in the garden were the tortoise 



