( Ixxxii ) 



practical information, not only as to the birds themselves, but 

 also as to their habits, migrations, &c., and above all there was 

 the occasional capture of a vara avis beyond the iuiowledge of these 

 experts. Conchology was also a favourite subject, necessarily almost 

 limited to land and fresh-water shells, for I had then never seen the 

 sea. But amongst ray early schoolfellows was a small boy about my 

 own age, whose father owned a fleet of fishing-smacks hailing from 

 Barking; there was no special community of taste, but he was 

 readily induced to obtain for me shells, Ac, brought up in the 

 nets, and occasionally very odd fish, such as " lump-suckers," and 

 so on. Butterflies and moths were collected and bred, and a 

 hornets' nest in an old tree had an especial interest, at a distance. 

 It had been instilled into my juvenile mind that the sting of a 

 hornet was fatal, and also that three large dragonflies could kill 

 a horse ! 



But in connection with this tendency to take an interest in 

 Natural History as a whole, there was one subject that especially 

 engaged my attention from childhood to early manhood, and that 

 was Botany, and this largely contributed to shape my future 

 course as an entomologist. At first the only works I could 

 consult were one or two old Encyclopaedias and one or two 

 childrens' books on general Natural History. At about the age 

 of seven or eight, Botany took more decided possession of me. At 

 tliat time an elder brother, a youth of eighteen or nineteen (whom 

 the Tiiames claimed soon afterwards as a tribute from those who 

 dare to bathe in its waters), gave me, as a present, Macreight's 

 * Manual of British Botany,' a curious present to a mere child, 

 technical, without figures, probably intended for medical students, 

 with the one advantage that it embodied the plants commonly 

 cultivated as well as the indigenous. It opened up a new light, 

 and, by means of the old encyclopsedias previously referred to, I 

 managed to master most of the technical terms, and to identify 

 most of the wild plants of the locality and many of those cultivated 

 in the garden ; my herbarium was commenced forthwith, for 

 which certain ponderous volumes did duty in the place of drying- 

 paper, much to their detriment. That technical ' Manual of 

 British Botany ' was the tliin end of the wedge ; it is now before 

 me, e.xtensively " thumb-marked," to use a bookseller's term, and 

 1 find that, being based on the Natural System, the Linnean 

 classes and orders were added by me as marginal notes. 



