108 ORIGINAL MEMBERS. 



and by habit. For this reason, perliaps, the ordinary 

 curriculum of the University was distasteful to him ; nor 

 was his early devotion to natural history always regarded 

 Avitli approval at home, being considered unlikely to conduce 

 to success in after life. Yet he obtained a considerable 

 reputation in his College as an essayist in English, and his 

 love for natural history was the making of him, though no 

 one exactly anticipated the distinguished career that he Avas 

 destined to achieve. Had he chosen the law as his pro- 

 fession, which might well have been the case, he would have 

 made an excellent barrister, and there is nothing he Avould 

 have enjoyed more thoroughly than the cross-examination 

 cf a prevaricating witness. 



Newton was elected to the Drury travelling fellowship, 

 for the sons of Norfolk gentlemen, at ^Magdalene in 1853, 

 shortly after taking his B.A. degree, and went abroad for 

 several years in pursuit of the knowledge which most in- 

 terested him. To anticipate : some time after the travelling 

 fellowship had expired, viz. in 1^77, his College elected him 

 to a Foundation Fellowship, and he continued to reside in 

 the Old Lodge at Magdalene, which had been his head- 

 quarters for some years previously. 



In the course of his many journeys, Newton's predilec- 

 tions seemed to favour the Arctic. Thus we find him the 

 companion of John Wolley in Lapland during the summer of 

 1855. Again, in 1858 he accompanied his friend to the last 

 home of the Great Auk, or " Garefowl " as he loved to call 

 it, in Iceland, and spent the early part of a rather miserable 

 summer in that island. The last of his northern excursions 

 took place in 186i, when he accompanied Sir E. Birkbeck 

 in his yacht to Spitsbergen. Meanwhile he did not neglect 

 more southern climes, since we find him in the West Indies 

 in 1857, whence he proceeded to the U.S. of America, 

 partly for the purpose of conferring with the naturalists of 

 Philadelphia and Washington. Again, in 1862 we find him 

 crossing the Atlantic, but he returned to England in January 

 of the following year, the paper in ' The Ibis ' relating to 

 his experiences at Madeira being dated " Elveden, Feb. 28th, 



