188 LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



stock-breeder and the agriculturist. He could and 

 did deal with matters so diverse as the cultiva- 

 tion of silkworms and the germs of disease in 

 domestic animals, where, again, his medical train- 

 ing proved of immense value to him and those 

 for whom he worked or wrote. The fruits of 

 much of his more serious (or purely scientific) 

 work appeared in the papers he read before such 

 bodies as the Zoological, Entomological and 

 Ornithological Societies, particularly the first 

 mentioned. The earliest of these papers — one 

 dealing with Abnormal Plumage in the Domestic 

 Fowl — was read in 1861 ; the last, so far as can 

 be ascertained, in 1897. These papers dealt with 

 a wide range of subject : in addition to those 

 on bees, pigeons and other matters mentioned, 

 we find him lecturing on salmon-breeding, on 

 new methods of pinioning wild birds, on the 

 great bustard, on the horns of the Cape buffalo 

 and of the domestic goat, on hybrid wild pheasants, 

 on the file-fish, the sternum of the tawny owl, 

 abnormal antlers of fallow deer, the wild cat, the 

 Sumatran rhinoceros, hybrid grouse, the rarity of 

 rooks, and so on. Needless to say, these papers 

 always contained something new of scientific 

 interest, and showed Tegetmeier at his best as 

 investigator or observer. Some of them formed 

 texts for subsequent correspondence with Darwin, 

 as in the case of a curious inquiry into the for- 

 mation of the skull of Polish Fowl. On three 



