122 THE REV. J. G. WOOD. 



Atlantic Monthly, and was a tolerably frequent contribu- 

 tor during the latter years of his life to the Youth's 

 Companion, a well-known American publication. 



I may also mention that, about the year 1870, 

 when " Mistram " became for a time a fashionable 

 round game, he published a small pamphlet - hand- 

 book upon the game, similar in form to the well-known 

 " Hints upon Whist-playing," by Cavendish. The 

 game was a favourite one with him for a time, and 

 he even managed to work a certain amount of science 

 and calculation into his play. 



IT now only remains for me briefly to summarise 

 my father's literary work as a whole. It is not for 

 me, of course, to criticise it in any way, or to discuss 

 the question of his position in the dual worlds of 

 science and letters. I may, perhaps, however, be per- 

 mitted to make one or two remarks upon the labours 

 of his life ; and in the first place to point out that 

 he never in any way attempted to pose as a man of 

 science. Quite at the beginning of his career he 

 saw that his forte and his opportunity lay in the 

 popularisation of natural history; in making it a 

 study of living and ever-increasing interest to the 

 many, and not a mere monopoly for the few ; and in 

 clearing away the hedge of technicalities and repellent 

 phraseology which surrounded it, and which practically 

 debarred all who had not received a special scientific 

 education from taking it up at all. For pure classifi- 

 cators, abstractedly scientific though they might be, 



