54 EMINENT NATURALISTS. 



of the masters received a dreadful bite from a centipede. 

 Nobody in the school would acknowledge to having 

 brought it there, and young Edward was called up. 



He was asked, did he bring it, and his reply was 

 " No." This so enraged the master, who was suffering 

 from the bite, that he gave him a double punishment, 

 one for bringing it, and the other for telling a lie. 

 Even after this severe beating with a strap, he per- 

 sisted in saying that he had not taken it there, and 

 after each relay of whacks, the master only seemed to 

 lose his temper the more. Edward's back and hands 

 received at this time the worst punishment of any of 

 the many inflictions of this nature with which he had 

 been visited. Out of breath, the master finally took him 

 by the collar, and thrust him forcibly out of the school. 

 Towards nightfall, Edward went home, and at night 

 his father intended to give him a second edition of what 

 he had received at school, but it was found that his 

 shirt could not be taken off, owing to blood having 

 flowed from the cuts, and clotted. Gro back to that 

 school he would not, and he has said in after life, that 

 his statement about having taken the centipede was 

 perfectly true. 



He was too young to go to work, and so for some 

 time he could do pretty well as he chose, and he took 

 every advantage of doing so. His school became the 

 seabeach and the little rivulets which ran into the sea. 

 On one of these wandering expeditions he had a singular 

 adventure. While searching among the heather and 

 stones for specimens of natural history, he caught 

 sight of a peculiar animal. He lost sight of it, and 



