THE DESIRE FOR ADVENTURE 3 



specimens which had been trapped in this sticky 

 mixture. When I recall those early collecting trips 

 of boyhood I think of the strange difference between 

 that method of collecting never far from a railway 

 station, living in a village inn and my present life, 

 which makes it necessary to plunge into a trackless 

 forest and cut oneself off from civilisation for 

 many months at a time. In the New Forest we never 

 slept in a tent, never, to my recollection, cooked a 

 meal in the open air. There was nothing of the 

 " wild life " in such collecting. But I suppose that 

 if I had had any real scientific enthusiasm it would 

 have appealed to my interest. It did not. It was 

 more pleasant than living in London; but I dreamed 

 always of the savage lands of my boyhood's books. 



The Natural History of the British Islands, so far 

 as lepidoptera is concerned, was fairly familiar to me 

 by the time I had reached the age of fourteen, but 

 my father did not allow collecting trips to interfere 

 with school life. During the holidays he would take 

 me to different parts of the country on these collect- 

 ing trips, but during school terms I was obliged 

 to stick closely to the desk, without much love for 

 letters except insomuch as they helped me to read 

 stories of adventure. My father on occasions took 

 collecting trips on behalf of private collectors to 

 Madeira and the Canary Islands, but I was never 

 allowed to accompany him abroad. 



At fourteen I left school, intending (or rather, 



B2 



