180 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK o& 



the beech are elongated and those of the oak are 

 round ? " 



I mention this not only for any interest that 

 may belong to the answer of the question in 

 itself, but also as a type of the kind of questions 

 which he was always putting to himself. It 

 appears to me that this faculty of asking himself 

 questions about the familiar facts, which most 

 of us note with our eyes, day after day, but take 

 no note of at all with our reasoning attention, 

 is the very faculty which enabled him to find out 

 so much and to be so interesting in disquisition 

 on very many topics connected with science and 

 natural history. Probably he had acquired it 

 in large measure from his great father in science, 

 Darwin, but assuredly it was of none the less 

 value for that derivation. When I confessed 

 that I had never had the intelligent curiosity 

 to put to myself the question which he suggested, 

 he said : "I think the reason must be that the 

 leaf of the beech is not indented at the edges, 

 therefore when it is rolled up it has to assume 

 the elongated form, if it is not to be torn. The 

 leaf of the oak is deeply indented, in many places, 

 so that it can be rolled up round without a tear." 



It was such speculations as these, which 

 every most familiar object suggested to him, 

 that made a country walk with him of greater 

 interest than a like excursion with almost any 

 other man. 



He notes that it was on October 18 that he 

 began the study of leaf-forms, and " went to 

 the Museum to look them up." On the same 

 date in the following month he was with the 



