146 LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



from the public and journalists by certain 

 officials to whom it was entrusted, and who, it 

 was alleged, had abused their position of trust 

 by favouring their friends and even themselves 

 writing articles about it. Chapter and verse is 

 given in support of all Tegetmeier's statements, 

 and I feel tempted to publish the article now, 

 as an example of his simple, forceful manner 

 when aroused by an injustice, but the same 

 fear of the law of libel which evidently held 

 the hand of the writer's " chief " is before my 

 eyes : I lose some good copy, and my readers 

 an interesting true tale from the wilds of 

 Central Africa and darkest Cromwell Road. 



Yet another minor but still important function 

 Tegetmeier fulfilled on the staff of the Country 

 Gentleman' 's Newspaper was the making of post- 

 mortem examinations of birds — fowls and 

 pheasants chiefly, which had come to an " un- 

 natural death," i.e. they had not been killed for 

 the table or shot for sport, and whose breeders 

 or owners wished to know the cause of their 

 untimely decease. To the scientific investigator 

 the task was doubtless an interesting one ; it 

 was his colleagues or occasionally some members 

 of his family who " usually objected " to the 

 evidences of his dissective art ; for not only 

 would the subjects of his inquiries be kept in his 

 room (or put perhaps on the window-sill in his 

 absence), but when a large number was received 



