2 
My own acquaintance with him dated from the same time 
as Wilson’s—his undergraduate days—when I was pleased 
to see some papers appearing on British Mammals, and 
hastened to press their author into the service of technical 
mammalogy, by enlisting his help for the National Museum. 
For some years while “eating his dinners” for the Bar, 
Barrett-Hamilton worked regularly at the Museum, taking 
for his speciality the Palaearctic Mammalia, in the same way 
as Bonhote was then doing for the Oriental ones, De Winton, 
Schwann, and Wroughton working in succession at those of 
Africa. During this period he wrote such monographs as 
were possible on the material then available, and thus paved 
the way for the general work on British mammals on which 
he early set his heart, and which he lived to carry so far that 
it will remain a monument to his memory, even if the final 
parts have to be completed by others. It was his early work 
on European mammals that made it evident that much more 
material was needed to deal adequately with the subject, and 
firstly by the late Lord Lilford’s generosity, and later by 
more systematic and official endeavour, the great collection 
was built up on which Mr G. S. Miller’s Mammals of 
Western Europe was based, this book in its turn being 
constantly called on for help in Barrett- Hamilton’s own 
especial work. 
Full of the spirit of adventure, Barrett- Hamilton’s scientific 
life has been interrupted by several missions abroad. ‘These 
were either in the cause of science, as when he went to the 
Alaskan seas to study the life-history of seals, and again on 
the last fatal expedition, or in the national service of his country. 
For he went to South Africa to serve in the Boer War, an 
occasion when he by no means forgot his scientific tastes, as 
he made considerable collections at the dreary outpost where 
he spent most of his time. 
Of late years, after he had married and settled down on 
his father’s estate in Ireland, his visits to the Museum 
