CHILDHOOD OF A NATURALIST 5 



the denizens of ponds and streams ; and 

 unquestionably, his life of steady and definite 

 zoological research owed its origin to the develop- 

 ment of the collecting mania shown by him 

 while a boy, playing in the fields near his 

 Buckinghamshire home. Nor was his love of 

 Natural History confined to dead specimens, to 

 bones and skulls, and scientific details : almost 

 to his end he retained a keen interest in living 

 birds and beasts. His friend Horace Lennard 

 relates, in an Interview with Mr. Tegetmeier 

 he wrote in the World, at the time when 

 he was living at Fortis Green, East Finchley, 

 how that in the wood behind the house " our 

 naturalist " could roam and study Nature in 

 all her natural profusion. " Through this little 

 arcadia," he wrote, "it is pleasant to roam with 

 a friend who can tell us the name of every shrub 

 and flower, and distinguish the note of every 

 bird which trills or twitters among the branches." 

 He refers to the " almost juvenile delight " the 

 old man took in all about him, contrasting it 

 with his character as one of whom it was said, 

 " he prides himself more on his enemies than 

 his friends," and he winds up with almost a 

 rhapsody on the old naturalist's love of and 

 interest in the wild-life about him. Truly, of 

 Tegetmeier it can be said, " the child is father 

 to the man." 



