BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 



shot that he scored his great success. He fired the 

 winning shot for the Ashburton Shield won by Charter- 

 house at Bisley in 1893. 



Most boys find considerable difficulty in choosing 

 a career, and pass through various phases when soldier- 

 ing, sailoring, or engine-driving seem an ideal existence, 

 and many of them eventually are ' put into something ' 

 by parents or friends. But while still at school 

 R. H. Lock's bent for science was already very marked, 

 and there was no question of any other career for him. 



R. H. Lock came up to Caius as an Exhibitioner 

 for Natural Science in 1898, and entered on a very 

 happy period of college life. He took a First Class 

 % the Part I. of the Natural Science Tripos in 1900, 

 thereby becoming a Scholar of the College, and a 

 First Class in Part II. (Botany) in 1902. He was 

 awarded a Frank Smart Studentship, and was able to 

 gratify the ' wander-spirit ' which was strong in him 

 by going to Ceylon for research work. 



He worked at Peradeniya under Dr. Willis, Director 

 of the Royal Botanic Gardens, and the result of his 

 experiments, especially in the cross-breeding of maize, 

 won him in 1902 a Fellowship at Caius, where his father 

 was also a Fellow. He wandered home via China 

 Japan, and America, enjoying the trip in his own 

 quiet, observant way. The next four years were spent 

 at Cambridge, working in the Botanical Laboratory 

 (where he was appointed Curator of the Herbarium 

 on material he had brought back from Ceylon. He also 

 wrote at this time the book ' Variation, Heredity, and 

 Evolution,' to which these words are prefaced. 



xiv 



