386 MY LIFE [Chap. 



As I reached home in a very weak state of health, and 

 could not work long at a time without rest, my first step 

 was to purchase the largest and most comfortable easy-chair 

 I could find in the neighbourhood, and then engage a 

 carpenter to fit up one side of the room with movable deal 

 shelves, and to make a long deal table, supported on trestles, 

 on which I could unpack and assort my specimens. In order 

 to classify and preserve my bird skins I obtained from a 

 manufacturer about a gross of cardboard boxes of three sizes, 

 which, when duly labelled with the name of the genus or 

 family, and arranged in proper order upon the shelves, 

 enabled me to find any species without difficulty. For the 

 next month I was fully occupied in the unpacking and 

 arranging of my collections, while I usually attended the 

 evening meetings of the Zoological, Entomological, and 

 Linnean Societies, where I met many old friends and made 

 several new ones, and greatly enjoyed the society of people 

 interested in the subjects that now had almost become the 

 business of my life. 



As soon as I began to study my birds I had to pay 

 frequent visits to the bird-room of the British Museum, then 

 in charge of Mr. George Robert Gray, who had described 

 many of my discoveries as I sent them home, and also to the 

 library of the Zoological Society to consult the works of the 

 older ornithologists. In this way the time passed rapidly, and 

 I became so interested in my various occupations, and saw 

 so many opportunities for useful and instructive papers on 

 various groups of my birds and insects, that I came to the 

 conclusion to devote myself for some years to this work, and 

 to put off the writing of a book on my travels till I could 

 embody in it all the more generally interesting results derived 

 from the detailed study of certain portions of my collections. 

 This delay turned out very well, as I was thereby enabled 

 to make my book not merely the journal of a traveller, but 

 also a fairly complete sketch of the whole of the great 

 Malayan Archipelago from the point of view of the philo- 

 sophic naturalist. The result has been that it long continued 

 to be the most popular of my books, and that even now, 



