FAMILY LIFE AND CHARACTER 223 



a friend, and a gap was made in several circles, 

 social and family, which is hard if not impossible 

 to fill. As one has said, he was " a distinct 

 individuality whom it was difficult to fit into any 

 of the ready-made schemes of social classifica- 

 tion." He might be said, in fact, to have been 

 " a striking example of his favourite biological 

 principle — the tendency of the individual to vary 

 from the mean of the type." " A good specimen 

 of that sane eccentricity which never rises to 

 the height of genius nor sinks to the level of 

 unamiable crankiness, he possessed the peculiar- 

 ities of several of the varieties into which men 

 may be divided without belonging definitely to 

 any one of them. If he was not a great man, 

 he was, at any rate, a great character." * " He 

 had done," says a naturalist friend, " his self- 

 appointed task with rare singleness of purpose 

 and devotion. All that he could have asked would 

 be that it might be of some lasting use to the 

 world." By Tegetmeier's death the last link 

 between the old school of ornithologists and the 

 new was broken. For many years the race of 

 Early- Victorian giants had been represented by 

 his venerable figure. Darwin and Yarrell, Sir 

 William Jenner, Dr. Lankester and Dr. W. B. 

 Carpenter, were his friends and co-workers. 

 Prof. Newton, Howard Saunders, Henry Seebohm, 

 Bowdler Sharpe, Lord Lilford, all builders in the 



* The Daily Telegraph, November 21, 1912. 



