260 OBITUARY x 
intellectual employment : it required so much skill 
to judge where to find most game, and to hunt the 
dogs well” (I. p. 43), was by no means so sophis- 
tical as he seems to have been ready to admit. 
In 1825, Dr. Darwin came to the very just con- 
clusion that his son Charles would do no good by 
remaining at Shrewsbury School, and sent him to 
join his elder brother Erasmus, who was studying 
medicine at Edinburgh, with the intention that 
the younger son should also become a medical. 
practitioner. Both sons, however, were well aware 
that their inheritance would relieve them from the 
urgency of the struggle for existence which most 
professional men have to face ; and they seemed to 
have allowed their tastes, rather than the medical 
curriculum, to have guided their studies, Erasmus 
Darwin was debarred by constant ill-health from 
seeking the public distinction which his high in- — 
telligence and extensive knowledge would, under 
ordinary circumstances, have insured. He took 
no great interest in biological subjects, but his 
companionship must have had its influence on 
his brother. Still more was exerted by friends 
like Coldstream and Grant, both subsequently — 
well-known zoologists (and the latter an enthu- — 
siastic Lamarckian), by whom Darwin was induced — 
to interest. himself in marine zoology. A notice — 
of the ciliated germs of Flustra, communicated to — 
the Plinian Society in 1826, was the first fruits of — 
Darwin’s half century of scientific work. Occa- — 
