36 BRITISH BIRDS. 



give his chief characteristic in a word, I should say it was 

 humiHty in its noblest and highest sense. 



Robert Service was born on 23rd May, 1854, at Nether- 

 place, near Mauchline, Ayrshire, where his father, James 

 Service, was gardener to Lord Justice Clerk Hope. After 

 being employed in a similar capacity by Mr. J. Hodgson, 

 of Houghton House, near Carlisle, his father, in 1858, 

 established at Greenbrae, in the suburbs of Dumfries, 

 the nursery business which was soon after transferred to 

 Maxwelltown. 



Robert was educated at the old Free Kirk School in 

 David Street, Maxwelltown, and on completing his 

 education there, entered his father's business. When 

 giving evidence in 1892 before the Committee appointed 

 to inquire into a plague of voles in Scotland, he was asked 

 by the chairman. Sir Herbert Maxwell : " You have 

 studied natural history for some time ? " His reply was, 

 " Yes, ever since I was a child ; " and there is no doubt 

 that in the Corberry Hill Nurseries, which his father 

 rented, Robert Service found as a boy, as he did later as 

 a man, a happy hunting-ground for what was to him 

 something much more real than a mere hobby. 



The engrossing nature of his trade allowed him but 

 little leisure in which to follow his inclination, and the 

 extensive and varied output of original research-work 

 that he achieved is therefore remarkable. Walks in the 

 country after the work of the day was done, and excursions 

 as far afield as possible on holidays, were the onlv 

 opportunities he had for pursuing his favourite study. 

 Long nights were often spent at the Maxwelltown 

 Observatory in the study of the stars ; in fact every 

 spare moment was devoted to science. 



It was only natural that he should early have become 

 a member of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural 

 History and Antiquarian Society. It had fallen into 

 abeyance in 1876, when Robert Service, then aged twenty- 

 two, with others started to re-organize it. Their efforts 

 were successful, and with him as secretary the society 



