2 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR 



and manuscripts. Alfred, the youngest of a trio 

 of exceptional ability, had affinities with each. 

 He started his career as a banker, and became 

 subsequently a clergyman ; he possessed an 

 instinctive love of literature, especially of 

 clear, balanced, and euphonious prose-writing; 

 and he gradually developed in his own work 

 a literary style which won him, to quote 

 the words of a critic of his first book, "a 

 place which was all his own in the great succes- 

 sion of writers who have made Nature their 

 theme." 



Alfred Rees received a sound education at a 

 good private school at Pembroke Dock ; but his 

 interest as a boy lay mainly in natural history. 

 He " would come home, hauling out of his 

 pockets snakes and toads and all kinds of living 

 thingsto his mother's great horror." Hi* 

 brothers collected books ; he, like many another 

 boy, collected birds' eggs, butterflies and moths, 

 and he arranged his collections with a care, 

 thoroughness, and artistic finish worthy of a 

 museum. He showed thus early that passion 

 for perfection which distinguished him in 

 the various pursuits and these, as will be 

 seen, were many in which he afterwards 

 engaged. 



At the age of about sixteen, he entered the 

 service of the ill-fated National Bank of Wales, 



