Xxil PROCEEDINGS OF THE 
medicine. During this period, he took great interest in chemical 
and mechanical pursuits, and is said to have constructed several 
ingenious machines. 
His earliest predilection in natural history was for the study 
of entomology, and he made an extensive collection of the imsects 
found in the neighbourhood of Worcester; but though he was 
doubtless animated by a strong love for this branch of knowledge, 
the scientific principles by which he was guided are not very 
obvious, when we find it recorded that he would not admit any 
insect into his collection but such as had been described by Lin- 
neus ; any new forms apparently being regarded by him as un- 
authorized interlopers. To entomology he soon added botany, 
as it was then understood, as an object of pursuit ; and these tastes 
appear to have been beneficial to him in more ways than one; for 
besides the useful and instructive training his mind thus received, 
his pursuits were the means indirectly of introducing him to a 
more refined and intelligent, or at least more learned society, than 
might otherwise have been accessible to him. 
At the end of his apprenticeship, and when he had reached the 
age of 21, Mr. Clark proceeded to London, with a view, apparently, 
of pursuing his medical studies. Through his guardian, Mr. 
Zachary, he was introduced to the notice of Sir Joseph Banks, 
under whose auspices, probably, he was elected a Fellow of this 
Society on the 15th of January, 1793—that is to say, within 
about five years of its foundation. 
His medical studies were commenced under John Hunter, whose 
place, however, in Windmill Street, was about that time supplied 
by Sir E. Home, and he had for fellow-students amongst the famous 
dead, Thomas Young, Anthony Carlisle, Abernethy, and Astley 
Cooper, and of the illustrious living Mr. Lawrence, who still remains 
amidst us in almost unimpaired vigour and activity of mind and 
body. But, although Mr. Clark appears to have regularly attended 
the medical classes, his choice from an early period was to devote him- 
self to the veterinary art, to the practice of which his medical and 
scientific studies were the best possible introduction. To this he 
was incited by his elder brother Mr. Henry Clark, who was a lover 
of horses, and noted in the sporting circles. In the pursuit of 
his special branch, he early attached himself to the Veterinary 
College, about that time established in St.. Pancras, and into which 
Mr. Clark used to mention with delight, that he officially led the 
first horse as a patient. 
In the year 1797, he resolved to visit one of his sisters, who was 
