NEWFOUNDLAND. 75 



entomological excursions, and he threw himself into scien- 

 tific study with extreme ardour and singleness of purpose. 

 He found an occasional companion in his cousin, Tom 

 Salter, an ardent young botanist, and he discovered that, 

 in a young man named Samuel Harrison, Poole now pos- 

 sessed a local entomologist. With this latter Gosse agreed 

 to correspond and exchange duplicates when he returned 

 to Newfoundland, and these pledges were faithfully kept. 

 Harrison was the son of the most influential member of 

 the firm, and probably his friendship with Philip Gosse 

 gave the latter a sort of status with Mr. Elson and the 

 captains, and invested his pursuit of insects with a certain 

 consideration. From this time forth, my father's zoological 

 proclivities were matters of notoriety, but he does not seem 

 to have met with any of the ridicule which so unusual an 

 employment of his leisure might be presumed to bring 

 upon him in a society like that of Carbonear. 



On September 20, 1832 ("the day before Sir Walter 

 Scott died," as he notes in his diary), my father's brief 

 but pleasant sojourn in England ended. He sailed with 

 the Convivial, on her return to Carbonear. He kept no 

 notes of this voyage, which was both tempestuous and 

 long, for they did not arrive until the 1st of November. 

 Late as it was in the season, and the Arctic winter already 

 setting in, he did what he could in collection and in study. 

 Of course, he met with many difficulties, of which his 

 personal isolation from all scientific sympathy was perhaps 

 the greatest, but by degrees many of them were sur- 

 mounted, and he learned much in the best and hardest 

 school, that of actual observation. He carefully recorded 

 every fact which appeared to be of importance, a habit 

 which proved of the highest value. He thus became, not 

 merely an assiduous collector of insects, but a scientific 

 naturalist. Immediately after his return from Poole he 



