108 DR. SHIPLEY'S REMINISCENCES 



conservative caution spread at times to his writings. 

 We have seen that he was able and even wilhng to accept 

 new ideas and to teach them, when he had by careful 

 thought arrived at the conviction that they were sound, 

 still in his magnum opus, the " Dictionary of Birds," he 

 preferred an alphabetical arrangement of his material 

 rather than commit himself to any of the existing 

 schemes of classification. None of these seemed to him 

 satisfactory, and of course no system of classification of 

 natural objects ever can be. 



Here may I add a few lines I wrote about Newton 

 very shortly after his death, when my memory of him, 

 never to be dulled, was, perhaps, a little sharper than 

 now ? 



The Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, which has 

 grown to be one of the largest in the kingdom, attained 

 its position largely under his guidance. He was always 

 on the look out for new and valuable specimens, con- 

 stantly, though anonymously, buying and presenting 

 these. He very greatly disliked any of his donations 

 to be recorded in the Reports of the Museums and 

 Lecture Rooms Syndicate. His gifts, not only of speci- 

 mens, but of books, to the Library of the department 

 must have cost a very large sum. His interest in old 

 books and early editions was that of a scholar. He 

 spent much time and knowledge on the University 

 Library, but his special province was the Philosophical 

 Library, situated in the heart of the Museums, over 

 whose destiny he presided for many years. It is largely 

 due to him that the Library at the present time takes 

 in some 600 periodicals, and nothing gave him greater 

 satisfaction than when, by the careful study of book- 

 sellers' lists, he was able to complete a " broken set." 

 There was something peculiarly scholarly about Newton's 

 writings ; and in small matters of grammar and punctua- 

 tion he was punctihous in a way that is now becoming 

 rare. Very httle that he published was of an ephemeral 



