xii Foreword 



He decided to enter the medical profession ; and after leaving 

 King's College, Cambridge, he went through St. George's Hospital, 

 subsequently specializing in eye-work, witli the object of taking up 

 that side of the profession. 



After he had taken his degree of F.R.C.S., and not long after his 

 marriage with Miss Birch, the second daughter of the Rev. Augustus 

 Birch, the well-known Eton Master, and afterwards Vicar of North- 

 church, he became the partner of the late Mr. Robert Doyne, the 

 distinguished oculist in Oxford, and took up his residence in that 

 city. 



His profession appealed to him far more from the scientific than 

 from the practical side ; and those who knew him intimately (and 

 they were few) realized that, for a man so abnormally sensitive 

 and sh}', the profession he had chosen was probably not the most 

 appropi'iate to his characteristics. 



No one would have used the word " brilliant " in connection 

 with him, but all who knew him sufficiently to form a judgment 

 would recognize the thoroughness and abilit}^ with which he pursued 

 his work, whether it was ophthalmology or the personal hobbies of 

 ornithology and the culture of orchids. No trouble or discomfort 

 was too great for him. He went to the uttermost parts of the British 

 Isles in pursuance of his investigations, if only he might increase his 

 knowledge of seabird life. And, just as his collection of seabirds 

 was accounted one of the best in the kingdom, so also his zeal and 

 patience in orchid culture made him, in due time, the possessor of 

 one of the finest English collections. His hobbies never degenerated 

 into mere playthings. They were carried on with the vigour of 

 an able man with the scientific instinct, who was steadfast and 

 thorough in all that he took in hand. 



In general society he was too sh\^ and reserved to be seen at his 

 best, but with his intimate friends, and in moments of expansion, 

 he was a delightful companion, full of humour, and, with his very 

 considerable power of mimicry, a capital raconteur, where the people 

 of his anecdote had come under his own observation. Perhaps 

 the power of infusing so much life and humour into the telling of 

 an incident, may be traced to the fact that in his Cambridge days he 

 had been a very good amateur actor, and a prominent member of 

 the A.D.C. Unconsciously, when he was in the swing of a good story, 

 he staged his dramatis personce so that the}' lived before the eye 

 with all their peculiarities and specialities well in the limelight. 

 Though ordinarily a man of quietness, almost amounting to 



