Vi MEMOIR. 



his inherent taste for natural history and field sports, and he 

 did not fail to take advantage of them ; but in other respects he 

 does not appear to have shown any promise of future intel- 

 lectual eminence, and was certainly not a bookish boy in any 

 sense of the word. He has said that his favourite reading was 

 Robinson Crusoe, and that he first acquired from Defoe s 

 story the desire to see foreign countries and study their inhabit- 

 ants and productions ; a desire which w^as much strengthened 

 when he subsequently read Darwin's " Voyage of a Naturalist 

 on the ' Beagle.' " 



In due course he was sent to Harrow school, where he spent 

 five years, gaining no reputation as a scholar, but devoted to 

 his out-door pursuits. His house master, Mr. Kendall, has 

 kindly furnished me with the following particulars : — 



" His school life was thoroughly characteristic of the future 

 naturalist : the boy was true father of the man. . . . His 

 school career was always creditable, though not brilliant, 

 ending in the lower Sixth. He had plenty of ability, but his 

 heart was already given to the study of external nature, and 

 our Harrow course did not then comprehend Natural Science 

 as it did afterwards. But his time at Harrow was by no means 

 thrown away ; he followed his own bent very freely, collecting 

 and experimenting in all his spare hours. He had many 

 friends, and no enemies ; but W. Warden, who came to Harrow 

 just after him, but was somewhat senior in age and standing, 

 was his devoted chum, and shared his pursuits. I was able 

 to give them a ^arge room together for some time, a little 

 detached from other boys, and this formed a regular laboratory — 

 not always of the sweetest — for experiments on plants, preserva- 

 tion of insects, etc. The interest and the ' stinks ' of that room 

 were a delight or a horror to the house, and I sometimes 

 feared that I should have to interfere on sanitary grounds. 

 But we managed to let things alone, and the future professor 

 developed his powers there admirably." 



No doubt, in this case, a wise master was better than the 

 best equipped science school. 



It is worthy of remark, that Harrow, which then did little or 

 nothing to encourage the teaching of Natural Science, should 



