SOME EARLY EXPERIENCES 49 



My usual plan of work is to take up six or seven 

 subjects of interest and of which knowledge is 

 deficient and to work at each until I have mastered 

 the subject by careful reading and personal ex- 

 perience. In some cases this has involved an 

 enormous amount of labour and travel. In the 

 case of Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland, 

 three volumes, I worked seven years at the book 

 and its illustration, and undertook six small expedi- 

 tions to gain a knowledge of one mammal, the 

 Grey Seal, alone. Then there were four expeditions 

 to hunt whales and to visit whale factories to 

 study and draw the great Cetacea immediately 

 after death, to say nothing of some twenty visits 

 to outer islands of Orkneys, Shetlands, and the 

 Hebrides to catch voles and other small creatures, 

 as well as to all well-known areas in England in 

 search of bats. 



