PREFACE 



The subject of this volume, a man of strongly-marked 

 personality, was for more than half a century a leader 

 among the naturalists of this country, a distinguished 

 Professor in the University of Cambridge, a prolific 

 and accomplished writer, and a charming companion, 

 whose geniality, humour, and innocent little whimsi- 

 calities, drew around him a wide circle of friends. All 

 who knew Alfred Newton will be glad that Mr. 

 WoUaston, one of his pupils, should have put together 

 this appreciative memoir. In so doing he has been 

 fortunate in having had access to so large a number 

 of the Professor's letters and journals as to give the 

 chapters not a little of the character of an auto- 

 biography. 



We see the future man of science entering Magdalene 

 College, Cambridge, in 1848, as an undergraduate of 

 nineteen. Six years later his youthful reputation 

 gained for him, as the son of a Norfolk squire, election 

 to the Norfolk Travelling Scholarship, with the aid 

 of which he was enabled to make ornithological re- 

 searches in Lapland and Iceland, and to visit the 

 United States and the West Indies. These early 

 journeys confirmed his bent towards the study of 

 birds, and laid the foundation of his fame as one 

 of the most eminent ornithologists of his day. He 

 used to regret in later life that he had not travelled 



