266 OBITUARY x 
finding his name, as captor, recorded in print. 
Evidently, this beetle-hunting hobby had little to 
do with science, but was mainly a new phase of 
the old and undiminished love of sport. In the 
intervals of beetle-catching, when shooting and 
hunting were not to be had, riding across country 
answered the purpose. These tastes naturally 
threw the young undergraduate among a set of 
men who preferred hard riding‘ to hard reading, 
and wasted the midnight oil upon other pursuits 
than that of academic distinction. A superficial 
observer might have had some grounds to fear 
that Dr. Darwin’s wrathful prognosis might yet be 
verified. But if the eminently social tendencies 
of a vigorous and genial nature sought an outlet 
among a set of jovial sporting friends, there were 
other and no less strong proclivities which 
brought him into relation with associates of a very — 
different stamp. 
Though almost without ear and with a very 
_ defective memory for music, Darwin was so 
strongly and pleasurably affected by it that he 
became a member of a musical society; and an 
equal lack of natural capacity for drawing did not — 
prevent him from studying good works of art with 
much care. : 
An acquaintance with even the rudiments of 
physical science was no part of the requirements _ 
for the ordinary Cambridge degree. But there 
were professors both of Geology and of Botany 
