INTRODUCTION. 



brother Gerald, and spent some weeks near Zermatt in systematic 

 climbing, ascending, among other mountains, the Matterhorn and 

 the Weisshorn. In the following summer, 1 88 1, he and his brother 

 Gerald again visited the Alps, dividing their time between the 

 Chamonix district and the Bernese Oberland. On this occa- 

 sion some of the excursions which they made were of extreme 

 difficulty, and such as needed not only great presence of mind 

 and bodily endurance, but also skilful and ready use of the 

 limbs. As a climber indeed Balfour soon shewed himself 

 fearless, indefatigable, and expert in all necessary movements 

 as well as full of resources and expedients in the face of diffi- 

 culties, so much so that he almost at once took rank among 

 the foremost of distinguished mountaineers. In spite of his 

 apparent clumsiness in some matters, he had even as a lad 

 proved himself to be a bold and surefooted climber. More- 

 over he had been perhaps in a measure prepared for the 

 difficulties of Alpine climbing by his experience in deer- 

 stalking. This sport he had keenly and successfully pur- 

 sued for many years at his brother's place in Rosshire. When 

 however about the year 1877, the question of physiological 

 experiments on animals became largely discussed in public, he 

 felt that to continue the pursuit of this or any other sport 

 involving, for the sake of mere pleasure, the pain and death of 

 animals, was inconsistent with the position which he had warmly 

 taken up, as an advocate of the right to experiment on animals ; 

 and he accordingly from that time onward wholly gave it up. 



His fame as an investigator and teacher, and as a man of 

 brilliant and powerful parts, was now being widely spread. 

 Pupils came to him, not only from various parts of England, 

 but from America, Australia and Japan. At the York Meeting 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 

 August, 1 88 1, he was chosen as one of the General Secretaries. 

 In April, 1881, the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred 

 upon him by the University of Glasgow, and in November of 

 the same year the Royal Society gave him one of the Royal 

 Medals in recognition of his embryological discoveries, and at 

 the same time placed him on its Council. 



At Cambridge he was chosen, in the autumn of 1880, Presi- 

 dent of the Philosophical Society, and in the December of that 

 B. 2 



