and his Ornithological Work. 721 



the no less fearful foes of fever, famine, and Hood, like the 

 fighters of old he carried Ins gods into the battle, and many 

 must have been the times when he took heart from his 

 remembrance and intimate knowledge of the lives of these 

 great ideals, these heroes of his boyhood. 



Interesting witnesses to his veneration for these great 

 dead remain round the walls of his museum at Wilsley, in 

 an almost exhaustive collection of their histories and lives 

 and in many fine old Napoleonic engravings. 



Although Boyd Alexander's name will go down to 

 posterity pre-eminently as an explorer, from the results of 

 whose travels has been gathered much store of knowledge 

 in various sciences, it must be interesting to ornithologists 

 to know that it was his passion for their own special science 

 that formed the mainspring of all his achievements. In 

 his book, which relates the history of his great journey, 

 ' From the Niger to the Nile/ he writes : — " Every explorer 

 looks upon the map of that part of the world which 

 particularly calls him, and endeavours to find a spot that 

 still affords opportunity for the special powers he may 

 possess for finding out the secrets that it hides. The 

 mountaineer sets his heart upon the ascent of some 

 unconquered height .... Other travellers distinguish 

 themselves in that form of exploration which depends for its 

 success upon a great knowledge of peoples and languages .... 

 The humanitarian follows the map as it is expressed by the 

 distribution of the tribes ; while geographers leave the 

 featureless desert on one side and take their ways by hills 

 that make beautiful undulating shadings, and by rivers that 

 embroider with blue veinings, and by lakes that shine like 

 jewels — upon the map .... All these facts [referring to 

 the little-known region of Lake Chad] attracted me, and 

 there was the character of the fauna to be ascertained, with 

 the hope that a locality, showing geographical peculiarities, 

 might also reveal marked differences in its fauna. This last 

 idea naturally took a strong hold on me, for I will now 

 confess that my ruling passion is ornithology, and all my 



