54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY [CHAP. vm. 



the insects were wholly unknown to me, I struck out a plan 

 of my own. From time to time I got one of the very largest 

 beetles that I could find, something that I was quite sure of, 

 and turned it into my teacher. I carefully dissected it and 

 matched the parts to the details of the description given by 

 Stephens. The process was very tedious and required great 

 care, but I got a sound foundation, and by making a kind 

 of synopsis of the chief points of classification I got a start. 

 To this day (1891) I have my old Stephens's Manual with 

 my own pencil markings, that started me on my unaided 

 course. Identification was very difficult for a long time, 

 but I " looked out" my beetles laboriously till I thought I 

 was sure of the name, and then, to make quite certain, I 

 took the subject the other way forward worked back 

 systematically from the species till I found that there was 

 no other kind that it could be. Killing my specimens was 

 another difficulty. I had been told that if beetles were 

 dropped into hot water death was instantaneous. I was 

 not aware that it should be boiling. So into the kitchen 

 I went with a water-beetle, which in after years I found 

 must have been Dytiscus marginalis a large water-beetle 

 which has great powers of rapid swimming got a tumbler 

 of hot water, and dropped my specimen in. But to my 

 perfect horror, instead of being killed instantaneously, it 

 skimmed round and round on the water for perhaps 

 a minute as if in the greatest agony. This was my 

 second lesson ; thenceforward I supplied myself with 

 chloroform. 



My first experience in the use of the microscope was 

 gained by helping my brother William to prepare botanical 

 specimens for examination under his microscope. I thus 

 had useful practice early in life, 1849 (?)> m * ne management 

 of a good instrument. I bought my own about 1864, after 

 my brother John's death one of Pillischer's a good 

 working instrument with excellent i-inch and ^-inch lenses 

 on a nose-piece. I first studied with it the hairs of different 

 animals. I also worked preparations of teeth, showing the 

 fluid contents when in a fresh state. 



In the number of the "Gardeners' Chronicle and Agricul- 

 tural Gazette" for August i, 1868, the announcement was 

 made that " Throughout the month of August there will be 

 open in the Palace of Industry, in the Champs Elysees, 

 Paris, an Exhibition which we conceive cannot fail to be 

 of great service in extending a knowledge of the destructive 



