266 OBITUARY X 



finding his name, as captor, recorded in print. 

 Evidently, this beetle-hunting hobby had little to 

 do with science, but was mainly a new phase of 

 the old and undiminished love of sport. In the 

 intervals of beetle-catching, when shooting and 

 hunting were not to be had, riding across country 

 answered the purpose. These tastes naturally 

 threw the young undergraduate among a set of 

 men who preferred hard riding' to hard reading, 

 and wasted the midnight oil upon other pursuits 

 than that of academic distinction. A superficial 

 observer might have had some grounds to fear 

 that Dr. Darwin's wrathful prognosis might yet be 

 verified. But if the eminently social tendencies 

 of a vigorous and genial nature sought an outlet 

 among a set of jovial sporting friends, there were 

 other and no less strong proclivities which 

 brought him into relation with associates of a very 

 different stamp. 



Though almost without ear and with a very 

 defective memory for music, Darwin was so 

 strongly and pleasurably affected by it that he 

 became a member of a musical society ; and an 

 equal lack of natural capacity for drawing did not 

 prevent him from studying good works of art with 

 much care. 



An acquaintance with even the rudiments of 

 physical science was no part of the requirements 

 for the ordinary Cambridge degree. But there 

 were professors both of Geology and of Botany 



