WHEN I WAS YOUNG 8 



time fighting with town boys or wandering aimlessly 

 in the forest." 



In consequence, although my ornithological col- 

 lection benefited by over two hundred species of 

 British birds, the four years spent at Marlborough 

 were marked by constant trouble and disgrace, 

 although personally I never felt I was doing any- 

 thing to be ashamed of. I was the only boy who 

 ever went through Marlborough and was birched 

 by the Head Master four times (all for catapulting) 

 without being expelled. Boys were warned by 

 their parents against me as being a bad character, 

 and at that time my very harmless offence was 

 bracketed in the category of the worst crimes. At 

 Eton and other schools no one thinks much of a 

 "swishing," but at Marlborough, between the years 

 1878-1881, a boy swished by the Head Master was 

 considered to be quite beyond the pale, and if the 

 punishment was repeated he was usually expelled 

 with ignominy. No master at that time seemed to 

 have the faintest notion that a boy could be so 

 absorbed in the collection of specimens of natural 

 history that he would take all risks, both of corporal 

 punishment and lines (which were worse), as well 

 as being held up to disgrace, for the sake of his 

 hobby. With me the obsession was like that of a 

 dog who has killed a sheep, there was no cure, so 

 I went through some of the happiest as well as the 

 bitterest times of my life under a cloud of universal 

 reprobation. 



Only " Dicky " Richardson, the master of the 

 lower school, used to be interested in the sketches 

 I did in the forest. When he left Marlborough as 

 an old man a few years ago, his pupils subscribed 



