CHAPTER II 



Sir Victor Brooke's Scientific Life and Work. 

 By Sir William H. Flower, K.C.B., F.R.S. 



I FIRST met Sir Victor Brooke one Sunday afternoon 

 at the Zoological Gardens, towards the end of the year 

 1870. He was walking with the late Edward Blyth, 

 formerly curator of the Calcutta Museum, one of the 

 most enthusiastic zoologists of our time. Blyth intro- 

 duced me to him, and I was at once struck by the 

 charm of his manner, his keenness of observation, and 

 his genuine love of animal life in all forms. At that 

 time he was purely a field naturalist, and the sportsman 

 predominated over the man of science. I asked him to 

 come and see me at the College of Surgeons, which he 

 soon did, and the sight of the skeletons and anatomical 

 preparations in the Museum kindled an eager desire to 

 undertake a more thorough study of the subject than 

 he had hitherto had the opportunity of doing. I was 

 then commencing a course of lectures on the teeth of 

 the mammalia, and he became one of the most regular 

 and attentive of my audience, both for that year and 

 several subsequent years, always taking the same seat 

 in the front row, with notebook in hand, and remaining 

 after the lecture to examine the specimens on the table 

 or discuss points of interest that had been spoken of. 

 As he had not gone through a University course, 



