HOW I BECAME A NATURALIST 9 



Lockwood, the Surrey bowler, on Bernard's Heath, St Albans, 

 and was rewarded for my juvenile efforts with a pocketful of 

 gooseberries. Twice in my own career I have scored a century. 

 Up to the age of twenty-one I was also an ardent footballer, and I 

 am a devotee of cycling for both convenience and pleasure. These 

 cricket reminiscences are included here to show the association 

 of my family with our national Summer pastime, and how it 

 undoubtedly influenced my own regard for outdoor life. Cricket- 

 ing and fishing pursuits took my parents and myself continually 

 into the open air, under the blue sky, and many an empty creel 

 has been compensated for by the streamside, watching the Water 

 Vole performing its ablutions, the dandy Dragon-Fly toying upon 

 the wing, or, maybe, I caressed the blue Forget-me-not which so 

 richly ornamented the fringe of the water. 



FIG. 3. PRIMROSES. 



I used, I remember, to steal cautiously out of the old home at 

 daybreak to spend the long Summer hours by some enchanted 

 stream, to listen to the seductive call of the wandering Cuckoo, 

 the bleating of placid Sheep, and the busy hum of winged 

 creatures. I watched the rise of the Mayfly, the flight of the 

 swift-winged Swallow as it skimmed across the lush meadows, 

 the hovering of a Kestrel Hawk, the pleasing gait of Nature's 

 little feathered gentleman, the trim Wagtail, the shoals of silvery 

 Minnows shimmering in the sunlit water, or the banded Perch 

 in the deep recesses, where the sunshine played hide-and-seek, 

 or cast light and shade, across the bosom of the stream. 



